K&R+X

[thumb:586:l] This morning I moved things around in the garden. Since harvesting the garlic we’ve had an empty Earthbox. The squash (zucchini or yellow) between the potatoes was looking a bit crowded so I moved it to the empty box. The chives filled the space it vacated. I also repotted a bunch of catnip that we picked up at the farmer’s market yesterday into a larger pot.[newline]

[thumb:587:l] [thumb:588:l] [newline]
The garden seems to be doing okay for the most part. The fingerlings have some sort of spots on some of the leaves but mostly look okay. We let the kale go to bloom and now the plants are covered with seed pods. According to this article the flowers and immature seed pods are edible. I tried one and it was pretty tasty. The kale has done very well. We planted it last Fall and it has provided a constant supply of fresh tasty greens. It has also been mostly pest-free so far.

[thumb:585:l] The garlic is all harvested. A couple weeks ago some of the plants had fallen over so I had harvested those. Since the bulbs were a bit on the smaller side we went back to watering the others. But now those plants also started to fall over. I don’t know if they just got too tall or what. They look healthy, just toppled over. I hadn’t read about garlic doing that. I might have left them but the apartment complex has landscapers that ride around on a big mower. Since the plants had toppled out over the lawn I didn’t want them mowed up.

I noticed digging them up — gently! — that the thicker stalks have bigger bulbs. I guess it makes sense but it’ll help us judge in the future about the bulb size. Eventually I think you’d develop a feel for when the plants are ready for harvest. I’ve already tried one of the bulbs fresh in a salad after the initial harvest. Very yummy. We ended up with 34 bulbs out of 36 cloves planted. It is Inchelium garlic, from Ferry County. I’ll save the best bulbs for replanting late Fall.