DW takes a break from weeding the spotty tater bed. I had to drag her away from the garlic as once she gets to pulling weeds she doesn't want to stop until she's got them all, or the sun has fallen low enough behind the mountain so's she can't see the weeds!
Tuscon. The picture backs up my notes: sloppy plant. They do look sloppy with their paler shade of green, the bent, haphazard leaves and the loose curl of the scape. Hopefully their flavor is better than their appearance.
These are Italian Red, possibly some of the nicest looking garlic in the bed. The scapes are forming tight curls and according to my notes the base of the stalks average 5/8" diameter.
Chesnok Red. It's hard to believe these were among the last to pop out of the soil this spring and then they were curled like a pig tails and hugged the ground! I believe this cultivar is supposed to rival Spanish Roja for flavor.We're hoping to lift the bulbs in the first or second week of July. This is the first year I've bothered to keep notes on my garlic beds so I don't know how delayed the harvest might be due to the long, cool, wet spring. Just on a guess, I'd say this year's crop looks as good and on time as last year's.
I'm so not into supermarket garlic right now. Evidently my friends and family aren't either as a brother in MS is telling me I have to sell some garlic to him while friends and family in FL, SC, PA and even Bulgaria are clamoring for their share. One of the Bulgarians suggested a trade, she'd send me mushroom bouillon cubes for garlic! I still can't get over Bulgarians wanting my garlic. They tell me they still grow good garlic in Bulgaria, but it is shipped outside the country to markets willing to pay more for it. The non-gardening locals are left with nasty stuff brought in from China, just like the crap we have in some of the supermarkets here!
We've already begun next year's garlic beds (they have potatoes in them) and our garlic guru has convinced me to keep most of the cultivars we have now as seed for next year while we buy our eating garlic from her. She also thinks we should throw in our seed garlic orders with hers as she gets a huge discount when buying in bulk. I'm all for that. Some of the cultivars we have growing cost us in the neighborhood of $30 a pound when you add in the cost of shipping!
I still haven't figured out where I'm going to hang the harvest to dry and cure! I don't know what we'll do when we finally get started gardening for market on the acre and a half our dairy farmer friends have given us. I walked over that ground recently and visions of a quarter acre of garlic were in my head. Where would I hang all that to dry?!
