Garlic 'a Growing!

All the garlic is up and so are some of the earliest spring weeds. We were starting to worry that we'd lost three cultivars; Morada Gigante, Pyongvang Korean and Chesnok Red. They only poked green out of the ground the last day of February or the first week in March. Every other cultivar has been up since before the end of November! We need to take a hard look at the crop, see if there are any stunted, or dying plants that need removed before whatever is bothering them can spread to the rest of the bed.

A big worry is the garlic nematode that may have reached our garlic bed via a purchase of "culinary" garlic I got from a farm in New York and planted without fully understanding the seriousness of the new invader. From what I've read of the nematode it entered NY from Canada and has been spreading throughout the Northeast USA. As the little buggers take several years to establish a destructive population I'm not sure what I should do with the garlic I harvest this year.

I have a new garden, an acre actually, and the plan was to begin planting it with garlic the second year we work it. I had planned to bring my "saved" garlic to the new garden, but now I think I'd best plan on buying certified garlic and just keep growing what I have now in the old garden. I'll rotate the beds of course and watch for signs of nematodes, possibly I'll even try the hot water treatments, but I'm thinking it's best to keep the new garden free of any garlic grown on the East-coast. Including my own!

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/garlic.html#nematodes

This is the Chesnok Red which supposedly challenges Spanish Roja in flavor tests. Being one of the last to show growth, and having nematodes on my mind, I was freaked to see the leaves curling like pig's tails. Of the 16 cultivars I have in the ground (maybe another 16 cultivars I've seen over the last few years) I've never seen such a curled leaf among them, until now. I drove over to check out my garlic guru's Chesnok Red and found hers to be growing just as mine is. As she bought hers from a different source than I did we figure it must be the cultivar's habit of early growth.

As I can't do anything about a possible nematode invasion now, nor can I make it rain when I need it, or stop when I really need it to stop, I guess I'll deal with what I can manage, the weeds. And figuring out where I can dry/cure the harvest come mid July! And dreaming of sausages made with GOOD garlic! Not the supermarket, nasty, harsh stuff I'm using now!

First shots day!

Are you my dad?

Mom, and half the litter.

Holy crap! What is that noise?

They've not been out of the dog house until today and a tractor firing up scared them.

DW holds a wooly bear!

First shots. The pups will be going to new homes in a week or so.

More noodles!

These egg noodles are so pale compared to the earlier batches. Except for the dough I added a mix of paprika to. I so dislike dull, pale noodles!

I also used a mix of lard and olive oil in the dough with the paprika. I'm curious to see how lard affects texture and taste. If I like the result I can buy fatback and render it easily enough and I use the cracklings in various meals so there is no waste. Fatback is $.99 a pound and 2 pounds looks to make as much lard as to equal 17 ounces of olive oil at $7 or more a bottle!

I know lard is supposed to be unhealthy, but as I'm going to die anyway I intend to enjoy my food until that moment. That, and I'm skeptical of the food industry's pushing vegetable fats as safer than animal ones. As I can't figure out whose telling truths or half truths, I'll follow my grandparents who lived into their 80s and 90s using lard!

Homemade egg noodles, or why I suffer gluten allergies!

These pats of dough were made with Pillsbury "all-purpose" flour. It may well be bleached and lacking everything supposedly contained in whole wheat, but I've found the flour allows the flavor of the eggs to shine! The eggs I used to make the dough were from free range/grass fed chickens. That type of egg flavor is what I'm after in a noodle!

The dozen great eggs I started with made 4 batches of noodles when I added a commercial egg to each batch. The commercial eggs I bought from a local egg house. They are the best eggs I can find at a price I can afford. They make a fair egg noodle on their own, but free range/grass fed eggs are simply superior!

The noodles on the left have begun to dry. The noodle rack hangs over an electric baseboard heater in the kitchen. They might be dry enough to bag by this evening, but I've learned to let them hang overnight if I'm going to store them rather than eat them right away. There is little joy in placing pounds of noodles in a container to use months later and then find them moldy because they weren't really dry!

Three batches of these noodles are heading to Florida as a Christmas gift for my friend La P. The other batch I'm sending back to the people who supplied the eggs. Maybe they'll like the noodles enough to supply me with eggs in exchange for noodles?

I used to sell the noodles and had enough customers to set me to thinking about buying a commercial mixer and turning a room in the house into a drying room. Then I got to thinking on what might happen when the county and state finally showed up demanding I get legal with inspections and permits. I'm a maker, I don't work well with takers. The only way to get the noodles now is to be a friend.

Frozen, but not forgotten!

I found these in the freezer while I was hunting something else. I think they are at least two years old. They were given to me by DW's aunt who got them from some organic grower across the state line from us. I tossed them in the freezer for desperate times as they had little flavor compared to the small harvest I'd lifted from our own little garlic bed that season.

Desperate times are defined by a lack of good garlic! Like, when all of ours has been eaten or planted, and all our garlic guru's stock has been sold or sown. These are desperate times in deed!

As bland as this garlic was years ago I find the brightly colored wrappers at least interesting. I've read that certain varieties of garlic, like certain wines, take time to fully develop their flavor. These seem to be such, though two years frozen may have helped them along in that regard.

Whatever they are, they are better than anything I can get from a supermarket!

UPDATE! 12/09/10

Duh, I put the culled bulbs from this summer's harvest in the freezer! (Senility steadily eats away!) The good news? Even the frozen, homegrown culls are better than supermarket fresh!

Early morn

6AM, standing in the factory parking lot facing west as the full moon heads for the mountains. The sun is an hour and a half from rising and it's 40F. Winter isn't far away.

About 7:30AM as the sun clears the horizon and sets this maple aflame! The landowners are unaware I'm about the place snapping pictures. They are just as unaware of the glory I witness as they go about their morning routines warm inside their house. Of course they live on the farm and I'm only visiting my garlic bed. I try not to disturb their routines with my quick visits.

From the garlic bed on Grandfather Cool's old farm. This is one of my earliest memories, this mountain to the west of most of my life. I always know where I am when I see that tree covered pile of rock.

The garlic is coming up! So are the weeds. :o)))))

I'm hoping for enough snow to keep the garlic safe this winter, but not so much that we have to deal with the cold white stuff ourselves. I wonder how the gods would manage that if I were to ask them? Localized snow fall?

Instead of worrying about what I can't control I'd best be figuring out how and where I'm going to dry and cure 770 bulbs come summer!

6 AM of a Friday and DW is working at "a job Americans wont do" just as she has been for more than 35 years. We still laugh about the two high school boys who worked at the factory one summer (about 25 years ago.) They quit after a couple months and filed for unemployment. Their argument for the benefit? "The work was demeaning." The state thought that good enough and granted them workers' welfare checks.

Demeaning? The 30 some other employees of the business asked. DEMEANING? How the hell was working for money to pay the rent, buy food, clothing and a car DEMEANING?

Demeaning is collecting a welfare check, be it through social services, unemployment or social security. Allowing anyone else to tell us what we are worth is demeaning!