November 2020 Edible Garden Planner

Late November edible garden

Saturday, October 31, 2020

November is a beautiful time of year as Mother Nature is getting prepared for the cold, wintry days ahead.  Late fall chores should include cleaning up your garden beds, reflecting on the gardening season completed, and preparing for the first freeze.

Garden bed clean up

To prepare your garden for its winter slumber, remove gardening debris from your beds.  For any diseased vegetation, be sure to throw these away and not compost.  You don't want to propagate and spread any diseases to other parts of the garden.  A really hot compost pile will kill them but it isn't worth the risk going into winter.  I keep the seed heads on the flowers in the garden for food for the birds over the winter. 

This is a good time to decide if you would like to make your own compost.  Compost is referred to by gardeners as “black gold.”  It provides nutrients, beneficial microbes, fertilizer and overall improves your soil’s condition.  Composting is possible in small spaces or even indoors  Outdoor compost piles go slowly in the fall and winter, but speed up as temps rise in the spring.

I have used an electric composter called NatureMill that we kept in the garage by the door.  It was easy to keep an odor free bucket made just for this purpose in the kitchen to collect fruit and vegetable scraps and empty weekly into the composter.  The small indoor buckets are called compost keepers or bins and come in a variety of decorative styles.  

You need greens and browns to keep the compost odor free and "cooking".  Wood pellets, chopped up leaves, or shredded paper work well as "browns" with the "greens" of kitchen scraps.  You get finished compost in a couple of weeks with an electric composter.  An outdoor tumbler takes a few weeks in warm weather.  I emptied one side of my outdoor bin to have plenty of room over the winter for kitchen scraps.  You can store the compost you are making in a trash bag to use when preparing your spring beds and to revitalize potting soils.  Re-energize your potting soil!  It is great for flowers and vegetables.

I have been using an outdoor, tumbler type composter for the last few years.  I first had an insulated, metal one by Jora.  It ended up rusting.  I now use a plastic tumbler.  I bought a grill cover to put over it to keep the compost from getting drenched with each rain.  It works year round but much better in the summer.  It is critical to keep the greens and browns in the right ratio to keep the compost cooking in the winter.   Here are some tips if your composter/compost pile starts having issues  Troubleshooting your compost pile

After your garden clean up, look to give your garden a nutritional boost for the winter months.  Doing a nice layer of compost and organic fertilizer, topped with mulch, will allow the nutrients to seep into the garden soil, ready to give your spring plants a boost.  The mulch will keep the soil more temperate during the winter months for your winter edibles and keep weed seeds from sprouting.  It is best to get a soil test done to make sure you are keeping the nutrients in the right balance.  The next step in garden production and your nutrition-soil minerals

Reflection on the past garden season

While the past gardening season is still fresh in your mind, now is a great time to jot down some notes on what went well, what didn’t, and what you would like to research over the winter.  Make a list of the varieties that did great that you want to replant, which plants you want to be sure to have more, or less, of next year.  Also make note of how many plants make sense to plant for next year.  Here are my reflections this fall for the edible garden.   Reflecting back on the 2020 edible garden; planning for 2021

Keep track of what you eat over the winter to give you a good idea of what and how much to plant come spring.  How much to plant?  Use this winter to figure out what to grow in the spring!

Even if you have a small area, you can grow most of what you eat.  How to decide what to plant for small spaces?

Fall is a fabulous time to make new garden beds.  It is super easy, too.  Just use a hose to outline your new bed, fertilize, put down a layer of cardboard (earthworms love cardboard!), a layer of compost, and cover with mulch.  By spring, the new garden bed will be ready for planting.  Easy ways to make a new vegetable garden bed

Gardening after the first frost

For northern Kentucky, the average first frost date is mid-October.  We have not had a freeze yet, but they are calling for one tomorrow night.  It is below normal highs for this time of year.  When the lows start getting 28 degrees F or below, this is a killing frost for the summer veggies.  Be sure to harvest the remaining tomatoes, peppers, and squash before the first hard freeze.  

There are many edible crops that can still be planted in November.  You really can eat fresh out of the garden year round even if you live in Zone 3.  Greens, herbs, onions, broccoli, fruit bushes and trees and flowers are a few of the crops that can be planted this month.  For more on planting in November,  What to plant in the November edible garden  

You can cover your veggies with a portable green house or row cover to extend the season for many cool season crops.  For cold climates, using cover is the key.  Frost forecasted? Here’s your to-do list  With a portable green house, we have kept lettuce, kale, mustard greens, sorrel, and celery all the way through winter.  You can garden year round in small space

I transplanted volunteer lettuce into the portable greenhouse pots and more lettuce seed.  Having cover will help them sprout.  It is late to start seed but will give a boost for spring harvests.  I will move my pots of greens under the portable greenhouse.  May add gallon jugs of water to keep the temperature more moderate.

If you are using pots, putting the pots on the south side, in a sunny local and close to the house will keep them from getting frost bit into November or even December for cold season crops.  It seems to extend the season for 2-4 weeks.  Prepare for hard freeze

You can also divide a piece off your herbs, put them in a pot, and bring indoors on a sunny window to have fresh herbs readily available.  Chives, thyme, rosemary, savory, tarragon, salad burnet, and oregano can also be harvested into December from the outdoor garden.  Growing herbs indoors for winter

Surprisingly, we found that peppers and some eggplants are great candidates from bringing in for the winter.  Our Jalapenos and Cayennes continued to fruit for weeks indoors and when put back out in the spring, we had peppers a month earlier than when using new plants.  Tomatoes are also contenders for overwintering indoors.  All are tender perennials and need direct sun to do well indoors.  I bring in only the ones that did really well that I want to get a head start on next season and not all do well.  To give them the best chance, make sure they get full sun.

Be sure to use insecticidal soap on any plants you intend to bring indoors a couple weeks prior so you don’t bring in unintended guests.  Just remember that insecticides kill the good bugs like bees as well as the bad bugs so be careful when you spray.  Natural, organic pest strategies and how to make your own bug sprays

I keep my plants out as long as possible to minimize their stay indoors.  There is nothing like sunshine and fresh air for a plant.  For the last 3 winters, I overwintered all my tropicals and edibles in the unheated garage with a hanging fluorescent light fixture with daylight bulbs.  They all did well except for the eggplants.  Eggplants are spotty, but worth the try if you had a great one.  Be sure to save seed so you can keep the plants going that do well in your garden and are disease free. Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver    You can save seeds even from heirlooms you buy in the store to try in your garden.  I have a few that have become standbys in our garden that came from the grocery store and farmers market.

Late November potted lettuce

For the herbs you cut back earlier in the season to dry, November is a great time to now strip the stems of the harvested leaves, dry and put into jars for winter cooking.  You can make your own “Herbes De Provence”.  Thyme, oregano, rosemary, savory, basil, tarragon and lavender are common herbs used in this famous French seasoning.  I mix them up in about equal amounts and store in a sealed Mason jar.  It is great to add to just about anything-sauces, chicken, fish, potatoes, garlic bread.  Makes wonderful Christmas presents, too.  Make your own "Herbes de Provence".

For those that keep on going into the winter, I would prune back the plants by about two thirds and strip the leaves from the cut stems.  Do so when there are warm temps forecasted for a few days to allow the plants cut ends to heal.  Otherwise a cold snap can kill the plant.

Use your herbs for your Thanksgiving meal Use your own herbs for your Thanksgiving dinner  More than likely you will have some edibles still growing in the garden.  Take a look and plan around them for your meal.  Some winter hardy edibles include kale, broccoli, cabbage, chives, sage, thyme, corn salad, sorrel, plantain greens, celery, mustards, even some hardy lettuces.

Prepare for hard freeze

Fall sunrise

Sunday, October 25, 2020

When a hard freeze is in the forecast, it is time to pick the last of the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants and clean the plants from the garden and give your cold crops a coat to protect them all winter!

You can compost any that were disease free, but dispose af any diseased plants in the garbage.  Only high sustained temperatures will destroy the spores and it is not worth the risk of spreading disease into next year’s garden through your homemade compost.  Composting is possible in small spaces or even indoors

Peppers will do well indoors if put in a sunny area.  They will continue to flower and fruit for weeks.  Their flowers and red fruits are pretty, too.  Come spring, they will have a one to two month head start on the season.

This is the time of year to put a coat over your potted plants left outdoors planted with cold crops.  The best place to locate your plants and greenhouse is close to a wall and on the south side of the house in full sun.  Putting the greenhouse against the house or other structure will help keep the temperatures warmer for your plants.  Extend the season with protection for plants

I will put my mini portable greenhouse covers over my pots and Earthoxes that contain kale, celery, French dandelion, spinach, lettuce, sorrel, sprouting broccoli, chard and arugula.  I also put inside the greenhouse along the outside edge, 5 one gallon jugs filled with water and spray painted black.  These will help moderate the temperature inside the greenhouse.

Mini portable greenhouse

I added a larger portable greenhouse for the other self-watering pots I have. It worked very well last winter and allows me to have more winter greens and start greens, carrots, broccoli and cabbage in the early spring.

Larger portable greenhouse

The biggest risk with a greenhouse?  Overheating!  The sun’s rays are quite hot on a cloudless day.  I open the vent on my greenhouse when it is sunny and in the 30’s.  I will unzip the front door flap when it gets into the 40’s.   In the 50’s, the cold crops really don’t need any protection.  

The crops that do well in early spring are the ones that do well over the winter in a greenhouse.  Cold crops I like to grow under cover are arugula, broccoli, cabbage, celery, chard, cilantro, corn salad, fennel, kale, lettuce, mustard greens, parsley, peas, sorrel, spinach, cultivated dandelions.  Cold season crops for your edible garden

Reflecting back on the 2020 edible garden; planning for 2021

 

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Now is the time to reflect back on your edible garden season to capture what went well and what did not.  What you planted too much of and what you didn't plant enough of.  Make sure to include the names of varieties that did well and those that didn't so you have them for future reference.  I also like to make notes of what I want to learn more about over the winter.  Do it now so you don't forget the details!   

Here are my reflections on this year's garden............

Overall

In general, the garden did well in the spring, was slow to start producing summer veggies, and faded in the fall.  This year was the first in a long time that we actually had a real spring.  Usually, the season changes from winter to summer like a flick of a switch.  This year, we had a couple of months of actual cool temperatures before the 80's kicked in.  

Overall, there were high points and not so great turn outs for the season.  Just your typical edible garden season!  

The good

  The cultivated dandelions, cilantro, sage, bay laurel, lettuce, arugula, sorrel, eggplant, cucumbers,  peppers, onions, basil, rosemary, sage, tarragon, okra, watermelon, cantaloupe  spaghetti squash did very well.   I had lots of volunteer cilantro and dill plants along with Cock's Comb, holy Thai basil, zinnias, and a couple of orach.  I got a bumper crop of coriander from the cilantro when it went to seed.  It's always fun to get surprises in the spring and summer garden.

I planted Hilton, a Chinese cabbage, and it did quite well in the garden.  It is something I will add to my standard edible garden.  It has large leaves that you can use in place of bread or tortillas and it is sweet enough to use in place of lettuce in salads.

I also had eggplant and cantaloupes that showed up that I did not plant.  They must have been in the store bought garden soil we bought this year.  It was a nice surprise!

I sprayed organic fungicides on my squash and tomatoes this year and had little to no powdery mildew in the garden.  

I did see a few stink bugs.  I squished the eggs I found, sprayed with Neem oil and dusted the plants with DE (diatomaceous earth).  This took care of them.  Be careful to not get on the flowers as these controls will kill beneficial insects as well.

The okay

Green beans and tomatoes did okay.  I think they both got early blight.  This is interesting because both powdery mildew and early blight are fungal diseases.  The tomatoes started off strong, but then the leaves started dying from the ground up.  I only planted a few pole green beans this year as I had many left over from last year in the freezer.  The pole beans produced until this week.

I will do the Serenade and Southern Ag fungicide sprays next year as they did make a huge difference in powdery mildew.  I will also do a drench at the beginning of the season.

I did have more issues with worms this year than I have had in years past with all the fruiting plants, even in the pots.  I think I also had slug issues for the first time this year on the greens.  We had a wet summer, which slugs and snails love!  BT (bacillus thuringiensis) is my go-to for caterpillars and worms since they only effect worms.  For slugs, I sprayed with Neem oil for a short term fix.  I'll do beer baits next year if we have another wet summer.  You can also sprinkle DE around the plants.  It has to be reapplied after a rain or watering.

This year when the cabbage worms showed up at the beginning of July, I harvested all my kale.  I did kale chips with the harvest since I still have plenty of kale frozen from last season.  It is best to harvest no later than the first sign of the worms to keep the population down. 

Tomatoes were slow to ripen; I didn't get ripe tomatoes until the end of July.  I got a good tomato crop through August, but early blight took its toll.  It took me a while to figure it out since I have not had an issue like this before.  I've done some research on it so have my plan of attack for next year.  I did not save seeds from this year's tomatoes as the fungus can live in the seeds.  One of the best things to do is to not plant tomatoes in the same spot the next year.  Optimum is to wait 4 years; practice crop rotation.  I'll grow plants that have a tolerance against EB and spray the seedlings with an organic fungicide before transplanting and use a fungicidal drench when planting and prune so no leaves are touching the ground.  I will also disinfect the supports I use with alcohol to make sure any fungus is killed before using them next season.  All plants from this year go in the trash and not the composter.  Lastly, next year, I will keep a close eye out for the brown dots on the leaves and lower leaves dying.  You should remove them as soon as you see them.  To be really cautious, you can remove any plants that it shows up on.

Overall, the greens did okay.  The Chinese cabbage, chard and tyfon had slug damage, which Neem oil seemed to fight back.  The chard, Chinese cabbage, tyfon have all rebounded now in the cooler temperatures.  The red and green orach did quite well; they were volunteers.  They make a great salad green.  The Giant Red mustard has severe seedlings coming up in the garden.  I had issues with mealybug on my stevia plant last year; this year it is doing great.

I tried a shade cloth over my greens this summer.  I am not sure it helped all that much.  The plants did not look as healthy as they normally do.  I am not sure if I will use the shade cloth next summer.

I looked back at the years that I had the best luck with tomatoes and pole beans in the garden to see what I did for garden prep in the spring and when planting.  I used a layer of mushroom compost, fertilized with Re-Vita Pro fertilizer before mulching.  With each seedling, I added biochar, worm castings and dusted the roots with mycorrhizal starter.  In the summer, I used a spray liquid fertilizer on the leaves.  I will do this again for next season as well as crop rotation.

I planted a couple of dwarf okra this year, Baby Bubba, to try out.  The plants did quite well and they only grew to about 4' tall in the garden.  They produced well for their size, but not as many as you would get from a traditional sized plant.  If you have a small space or are growing in a pot, I would recommend this plant.

The bad

The garlic did not do well this year.  We moved our awning from the deck to the patio and the overhang extended past the garlic plants.   I watered weekly, but I think they just did not get enough moisture.  I replanted them all and did not preserve any.  Typically, I pickle 4 or 5 quarts of garlic to last us until next year.  This is my favorite way to preserve garlic as it keeps for years.  Quick tip-”peeling” garlic

I didn't have the best luck in starting lettuce and spinach in pots this summer and fall.  I think the slugs got them.  They would sprout and then something would come and eat them to the ground.  I have a few that made it and the last set I started, many have survived.  There are also a few volunteers from the lettuce that went to seed in the summer.  I'll keep transplanting them into the pots that I'll cover with a portable greenhouse to keep the salads going through the winter.

Next year's garden

We are hoping to start our addition next year.  It goes right over the top of my current edible garden.  Next year's garden will be mainly in pots.  There is a small amount of space in the back garden, but it gets a lot of shade so not ideal for an edible garden.

Here is my garden plan for next year:

Pole green beans around one trellis

Baby Bubba or Burgundy okra

3 tomato plants-large paste, slicer and small paste

3 white eggplant

1 white cucumber

1 summer squash-either zucchini or patty pan

Potatoes in the potato boxes

Snow peas in pots

Dragon Tail radish in pot

Hilton Chinese cabbage (1)

New Zealand and Malabar spinach in pot (1 each)

Lettuce and spinach in pots

Sweet and hot peppers-check at end of winter to see if I need any

No cantaloupe, watermelon, beets, heading cabbage or broccoli

I have to be stern with myself about what I will not plant.  My eyes are always bigger than my space or need.  

The garden season is not over yet.  There will be much to enjoy through most of the winter. We will have arugula, mustard greens, Chinese cabbage, tatsoi, lettuce, chard, blood veined sorrel, garden sorrel, French and Italian dandelion, spinach, lettuce, purslane, chives, parsley, cilantro, celery and sprouting broccoli for salads.  The Egyptian onions will produce all through winter.  The herbs will be available for harvesting until the snow covers them up.  I planted winter cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower this fall so should have these through the winter as well.

What's happening in the mid October edible garden

 

Sunday, October 18, 2020

This is a time of year that most summer vegetables are winding down and cold crops are growing strong.  With frost, many summer vegetables will die and cold season crops will get sweeter.  The biggest difference between spring and fall is that the days are getting shorter instead of longer.  For planting in the fall, add 2 weeks to the "Days to harvest" on seed packets to compensate.  Be sure to plant varieties that thrive in the colder weather.

We continue to fertilize our vegetables monthly.  Fertilizer stimulates new growth so don't fertilize the plants that are "tender"/susceptible to frost.  This is also a great time to re-mulch the garden beds to give an added blanket of protection to prolong the season.  The mulch will break down over the winter, providing additional organic matter.

Be sure that you are saving seeds from your best producers for next year's garden.  Seeds from plants that do well in your garden are the best to save as they are proven to like your garden conditions.  Always save seed from the best tasting, best sized veggies.  One caveat, don't save seeds from any diseased plants.  The seeds will carry the disease back to the garden when planted.  Seed saving-fun, easy and a cost saver

Our zucchini are done for the year.  The cucumbers and spaghetti squash are close to done.  It is a good idea to replant some zucchini seeds in August to keep zucchinis on hand in the garden into fall.  It is not a bad idea to replant tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini in early August each year to keep these plants at top producing vigor until frost.

My Napoli tomato and all eggplant are still producing slowly.  For tomatoes, be sure to take all the tomatoes off the vine before it frosts.  You can either wrap the green tomatoes in newspaper and store in a cool place to ripen, make them into relish, or eat them as fried.  For fried green tomatoes, we use Andy’s Cajun batter.  Gives them a nice, spicy flavor.  A late fall tradition-fried green tomatoes!

Any plant that has a disease, do not compost!  Throw away in the trash.  Composting may not kill all spores and you could be spreading the disease next season wherever you use the compost.  Composting is possible in small spaces or even indoors

Peppers love this time of year.  They are native to the mountains so they love this weather.  They will continue to produce even after frost.  To prolong the season, I put the pots up against the house.  You can also bring them indoors and they will produce for weeks inside.  When spring comes and you put them back outside, they will get a jump start on producing next year.  Peppers a Plenty in September

I have gotten many sweet peppers off the two pots I had this year.  I freeze the extra sweet peppers to use in salsa throughout the winter.  Salsa is a great snack during football games.  Quick and fresh homemade salsa

I harvested the basil in mid-September to dry.  I put the cut stems into a paper bag loosely to let them dry.  I took the leaves off the dry stems today.  I'll keep them in a ziplock in a dark room until I am ready to use them.  My favorite way to preserve basil is to make pesto.  This year, I had plenty of pesto left over so I let the plants flower.  Pollinators love it. 

Basil are very tender annuals and will turn black with the first frost.  You can dig them up and bring them in for the winter.  Place them in a full sun spot.  You can put them back outside again in the spring after all danger of frost has passed.  Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil

I have volunteer lettuce, parsley, carrots, chervil, Dragon's Tail radish, dill and cilantro that are a few inches tall now.   All are doing well.  My potted cultivated dandelions, arugula, corn salad, celery, chard and parsley is still producing and will continue through the winter.  Dandelions are perennials and very healthy to eat.  The Italian and French types have been bred to have large leaves.  Great to make salads.  Plant lettuce seed now for fall and winter harvest...

Cabbage, kale, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, chard, onions, arugula and other cold crops get sweeter with cool weather and a nice frost.  The kale is putting on many new leaves.  They love the cool weather. If the taste of these are too strong for your palate right now, give them another chance after frost.  Our Egyptian walking onions are lush and green.  The bulbs are filling out nicely.   Egyptian walking onions

This is also the perfect time of year to reseed your lawn or transplant perennials.  The fall and winter give the roots time to establish so they will be ready to grow upwards come spring.  We replaced our driveway a couple of months ago and re-seeded.  The grass has grown in well. 

Many herbs are perennials-garlic, sprouting onions, lavender, oregano, chives, sage, tarragon, thyme, savory, salad burnet, and rosemary.  Bay laurel is a perennial but may not make it through our erratic temperatures.  I keep them in pots and bring into the garage each year.  They are getting quite large. I don't have the best luck with rosemary making it through late winter/early spring so this year I planted one in the garden and one in a pot.  I'll bring in the potted rosemary to overwinter in the garage.  Perennial veggies in the Midwest garden

Fall is a great time to cut back your herbs.  Save the stems, place loosely in a paper bag, put in a dry location, and in about a month you will have all the dried herbs you and many family members will need for the next year!  Make your own "Herbes de Provence"

Fall is a bountiful time for gardening.  I have planted many winter hardy varieties of lettuce, kale,  mustards, onions and carrots to keep the garden producing into December and hopefully beyond.  With the portable greenhouse, we will have greens all winter.  How to extend the garden season

Frost forecasted? Here’s your to-do list

Saturday, October 10, 2020

With frost in the air, summer loving veggies are coming to the end of their season.  Veggies like tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, basil, and peppers do not like cold weather.  It is time to harvest the last of the summer veggies and get the cold crops the protection they need to continue producing through fall and winter.

Basil turns black when bitten with the first frost.  Harvest all remaining basil when they call for low temperatures of 36 or below to be on the safe side.  I make lots of pesto and freeze.  Makes for a super quick and tasty meal any time.  Basil basics-harvesting, preserving, growing basil

Our zucchini gave up weeks ago.  If you want to keep strong zucchini and summer squash production until frost, it is best to plant a second round of plants in mid-summer.  Growing zucchini and summer squash

Cucumbers are still producing in my garden.  Cucumber info and tips for growing  If yours is still producting, harvest what is on the vine and put in the fridge to use for salads or smoothies.  Grow your own smoothie and juice garden

The peppers are still producing.  They handle cooler weather better than the rest of the summer veggies.  I’ll wait until it is going to get below 28 before I strip off all the peppers still on the plant.  See Peppers are for every taste and garden and  Preserving peppers  for growing and preserving info.  For my favorite plants, I usually bring indoors to overwinter.  They will continue to flower and fruit for weeks in the unheated garage and have a jump on production in the spring.  Peppers, tomatoes and eggplant are all tropical perennials.  This year, I am not bringing any of them indoors except my Chipetin ancient pepper as my freezer is bursting at the seams.  I've had it for 5 years now.

I'll follow the same approach for tomatoes.  When it is going to get below 32, I’ll take off all tomatoes left on the vine.  The best way to get them to ripen is to wrap each individually in newspaper and store in a dark location.  They will slowly ripen.  Won’t be as tasty as off the vine, but better than what you can get in the store.  Last year, I had ripe tomatoes through February.  Or you can do fried green tomatoes A late fall tradition-fried green tomatoes!  You can bring in your favorite tomato plants to an unheated garage, too, to overwinter.

I am still getting a few tomatoes.  I typically wait until it is nice and chilly to start canning.  I'll take all of last year's frozen tomatoes and make into sauce for the winter.  I like waiting until it is cooler before canning!  This year, I have plenty of sauce left from last year and we used up all the frozen tomatoes saved from 2019.  I am going to try pressure canning of venison this fall, though.  Preserving the tomato harvest

My eggplants are still giving us a few fruits each day.  I had lots of volunteer eggplants come up.  They are happy in their pots.  We have great luck growing our eggplant in pots.  Eggplant-add this native from India to your garden  I freeze the extra eggplants I have either sliced in half or thinner slices to be grill ready.  It is best to blanch eggplant before freezing to keep them tasty for months in the freezer.  Freezing the extras for winter

Now is also a great time to divide any perennials you have, whether they be herbs, edibles or ornamentals.  This will give them all fall and winter to put down strong roots.  Perennial greens are always the first up in the spring.  Midwest Perennial Vegetable Garden

It is still not too late to transplant fall crops like cold hardy types of lettuce, cabbage, chard, pak choi, broccoli, kale, parsley, garlic, onions or perennial herbs.

Now is the time to order your mini greenhouse to extend the season.  I'll put mine out over the greens in my Earthboxes to keep the lettuce and greens going all winter when they are calling for a freeze.  Preparing for a hard freeze

Portable greenhouse for winter greens

October is prime time to plant garlic

Sunday, October 4, 2020

Garlic is rich in lore.  It has been reputed to repel vampires, clear the blood, cure baldness, aid digestion over the ages.  Garlic has been around for thousands of years.  It originated in Asia, was cultivated in Egypt and has been a Mediterranean staple for centuries.

Today’s studies have shown is garlic antibacterial, anti-fungal, antiviral, and a cancer fighter. And, it tastes great!  Garlic is high in vitamin C, B6, calcium, manganese, selenium and more.  For more nutritional info,  garlic nutritional value 

It is easy to grow and has little pest issues.  All you do is throw them in the ground in the fall in October or November and by early summer, they are ready to harvest.  Loosening the soil and adding compost prior to planting can boost the garlic bulb size.  I have planted Elephant garlic straight into my mulched flower beds and had great luck.  Their flower in spring is quite striking as well.

I did see black aphids on my newly sprouted garlic greens this past week for the first time ever.  I just squished them.  I'll keep an eye out for them for the next couple of weeks.

The clove puts out roots in the fall.  Depending on how warm the winter is, there can be green shoots showing through the cold months.  Garlic will be some of the first to start growing in spring.  The stems resemble onion greens.  The garlic flower, or scape, has a cute little curl in it.  It grows on hard neck varieties.  They are great in salads.  There is debate among garlic growers if removing the scape will also increase the bulb size.  Either way, you can't lose by harvesting them.

Garlic sprouting in winter

You should choose the biggest cloves to plant.  The bigger the clove, the bigger the harvest!  Cloves as a root vegetable like loose soil, compost and steady fertilizer.  Like carrots, radishes and beets, you can add sand to give a looser soil structure in your garlic bed.  Simply tilling in compost should provide the soil texture that garlic loves.  Compost and mulch well in the fall before cold weather sets in.

Plant the cloves root side down (that is the flat end, not the pointy end), 1-2” deep, and 4-6” apart.  For planting by the cycle of the moon, garlic should be planted during the waning cycle of the moon.  After the greens sprout to 6”, add compost or fertilizer as a side dressing.  Garlic does not need a lot of nitrogen so compost is a good choice.  

I am planting in a new bed this fall so I loosened the soil to 8-10" deep, added cow manure compost into the soil, Azomite for minerals, Espoma balanced fertilizer and covered with mulch when I planted.

Garlic is ready to harvest then the tops begin to die off in the early to mid summer.  Each leaf represents a layer of the white covering on your clove bulb.  Dig up one or two when about half of the leaves have died (40% yellowed/brown leaves).  If the bulb is still small, wait a couple more weeks before harvesting.   If you harvest too late, the outer covering will have disintegrated and you will have just loose, naked cloves.

Garlic ready to harvest

Be careful when you go to harvest.  If you cut the bulb, it will not keep and needs to eaten soon.  The garlic should be left in dry shade for 2-3 weeks or brought inside and stored in a cool, dry location with good air circulation.  They can be hung or placed in a perforated bin to dry and store.  

Store bought conventional garlic has been treated with chemicals to keep them from sprouting so they are not a great choice for growing your own.  A great option is to buy garlic from your local farmers market.  You know they grew well in your area.  Just separate out the bulb(s) into individual cloves and plant the biggest ones.  Be sure to leave the "skin" on the cloves that you intend to plant.  You can eat or preserve the smaller cloves.

Garlic can be mild or hot.  Elephant garlic is very mild and not really true garlic at all.  It is a type of leek.  It has a great garlic flavor and produces huge bulbs.  I always keep the biggest cloves to replant in the fall.

Elephant garlic flower

You can tell the difference in the two by looking at the flowers.  Leeks and soft neck garlic have a onion type flower while garlic has a curly scape flower.

Hardneck garlic scapes

There is soft and hard necked garlic.  For storing, soft neck garlic is the ticket.  Soft neck garlic can store for months.  It's stems can be braided, too.  It is also the strongest flavored.  Hard necked varieties can be milder, have larger cloves, is easier to peel, and more cold hardy.  Garlic connoisseurs say hard neck varieties have rich and complex flavors.

If you the winter weather is too mild, hard neck varieties will make small heads.  If you live where zoysia and bermuda grass thrive, soft neck garlic is the best choice.  You can always buy a sampler pack and try different types to see which grow best in your garden conditions.  

A good bet for finding which grow best in your area is to visit farmers markets and see what varieties are offered locally.  Locally grown garlic can also be used for planting in your own garden. 

Everyone knows of garlic in sauces and on cheese bread.  A few years ago, we tried roasted garlic.  It dramatically mellows the flavor.  I just put a few heads in a small baking dish, add chicken stock to just about level to the cut heads, and let bake covered at 350 for 30-45 minutes, until soft.  It is a great spread on French bread!

If your garlic dries up over the winter, grind it into garlic powder.  If you have great tasting garlic that doesn’t store well or you have a bountiful crop, another preservation option is pickled garlic.  This is my go-to preservation method.  Just peel (Quick tip-”peeling” garlic) and cover your fresh garlic cloves in organic apple cider vinegar.  You can add a couple of hot peppers if you want to add some extra zing!  
Have garlic any time you need it, just pickle some!

Of course, you can also add garlic to the tomato sauce (Preserving the tomato harvest), pickles (Easy, homemade pickles) or peppers you are going to can.  You can flavor vinegars or oils by popping crushed garlic into them (Quick tip-make your own flavored oils).  Many options for utilizing your garlic harvest!