# Garden tilled today



## partdeux (Aug 3, 2011)

ok, SWMBO and her LOVE of dirt is beginning to wear off on me. 

Hopefully till it one more time, order about 2" worth of compost, get it tilled in, about that time, we should be warm enough to PLANT 

Put in two requests this year, MORE bloody mary mix  And to try making catchup for the first time.

carrots and parsnips planted last fall are growing nicely. Garlic has gone WILD. I'm going to try and get garlic cycled into two year growth.


----------



## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

partdeux said:


> ok, SWMBO and her LOVE of dirt is beginning to wear off on me.
> 
> Hopefully till it one more time, order about 2" worth of compost, get it tilled in, about that time, we should be warm enough to PLANT
> 
> ...


The oldest DD has a good recipe for catchup, will get her to write it down and will post it.

I cant get carrots to do anything here for the life of me. I was tilling up another plot today and guess what I found? A carrot the 1/2 the size of of my pinky. The last time I planted carrots was 2 years ago, have no idea where it came from. It was a good 75 - 100 feet from where they were planted those 2 years ago and they did not go to seed that year.


----------



## HillbillyPrep (Mar 24, 2012)

We made a batch or two of ketchup last year and it turned out pretty good. It takes a LOT of tomatoes. We used Roma tomatoes. We are raising three different kinds of maters this year and we'll just mix all of them and see what happens. 
Do carrots grow better in sany soil? I've tried once to grow them but it didn't turn out too well.


----------



## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

HillbillyPrep said:


> We used Roma tomatoes. We are raising three different kinds of maters this year and we'll just mix all of them and see what happens.


That's the way I do it. Add a few pints of cherry tomatoes too. They're sweeter and add a nice flavor to whatever you're making.



> Do carrots grow better in san(d)y soil? I've tried once to grow them but it didn't turn out too well.


The looser (is that a word :dunno the soil the better carrots will grow since it's one long, deep root. A few years back, I dug out about 10" of soil in a 2'x4' area and filled it with a couple bags of sand I had left over from a sidewalk paver project. I had the best carrots (shape-wise) that I ever had. That was the only time I ever did it. The time involved didn't seem worth it to me. I add wood chips to the soil every year which helps keep the soil loose enough. Yeah, I get a few deformed carrots but I'm not trying to sell them to people that want, what they perceive as, perfection.


----------



## HillbillyPrep (Mar 24, 2012)

UncleJoe said:


> That's the way I do it. Add a few pints of cherry tomatoes too. They're sweeter and add a nice flavor to whatever you're making.
> 
> The looser (is that a word :dunno the soil the better carrots will grow since it's one long, deep root. A few years back, I dug out about 10" of soil in a 2'x4' area and filled it with a couple bags of sand I had left over from a sidewalk paver project. I had the best carrots (shape-wise) that I ever had. That was the only time I ever did it. The time involved didn't seem worth it to me. I add wood chips to the soil every year which helps keep the soil loose enough. Yeah, I get a few deformed carrots but I'm not trying to sell them to people that want, what they perceive as, perfection.


Thanks for the info, UncleJoe. I'm going to try the sand this season. Good idea on the cherry tomatoes too, thanks.


----------



## ZoomZoom (Dec 18, 2009)

On the ketchup, make sure you also have plenty of vinegar and sugar. We find canning in pints instead of jars works nicely if you're not a heavy ketchup user.

I tilled mine a couple times. Will be putting stuff in this weekend. Wish my onion plants were ready...


----------



## Genevieve (Sep 21, 2009)

I already turned the one large bed with a fork, and today after I run an errand to the pharmacy, I'll be roto-tilling it. I still have some buffalo manure left over and that and some lime will be going in today.

I'll be in pain after I use the roto-tiller( kills my knees), but it's something that has to be done so....... you do what ya have to do.*shrugs*

I'll only be putting in around 9-12 tomato plants this year. Last year I did 40 and I canned and canned. And we still have a bunch left for the coming year.
I'll be dehydrating any extras that we can't eat this year.

I'll be dehydrating most of what I grow this year just to add to the supplies.

And this year I'll be making pesto and drying it into leathers and powder. Love pesto. num.

I'll also be drying alot of cucumbers and their skins for powder, so I can use it for salad dressings and dips.

More cabbage and zucchini for soups and some stirfries.


I've had really great success growing carrots in big window boxes. They get to a nice length ( too big and they're tough). That way you can use really nice loose dirt and you don't have to worry about changing your whole garden.


----------



## Immolatus (Feb 20, 2011)

Garlic was the first thing I planted, and after 1.5 yrs I moved it into the garden, and it hadnt grown a bulb at all. The plants are still there and growing nicely, Im just wondering how long it has to be for me to get a clove out of one?
Still havent planted much outside, still getting cold snaps but Sunday its supposed to be in the 80's. If it stays warn next week I will go nutz on the planting...


----------



## partdeux (Aug 3, 2011)

Immolatus said:


> Garlic was the first thing I planted, and after 1.5 yrs I moved it into the garden, and it hadnt grown a bulb at all. The plants are still there and growing nicely, Im just wondering how long it has to be for me to get a clove out of one?
> Still havent planted much outside, still getting cold snaps but Sunday its supposed to be in the 80's. If it stays warn next week I will go nutz on the planting...


time to try a different type. I have a wild garlic that grows like crazy. it's also like 4x stronger than store bought


----------



## Immolatus (Feb 20, 2011)

Hmm. Yeah, it was just some cloves I had bought at the store. Guess I'll rip em up and get some actual plants. Hadnt thought of that, but it was literally the first thing I planted ever in my adult life.


----------



## partdeux (Aug 3, 2011)

Immolatus said:


> Hmm. Yeah, it was just some cloves I had bought at the store. Guess I'll rip em up and get some actual plants. Hadnt thought of that, but it was literally the first thing I planted ever in my adult life.


are you talking about cloves from the grocery store, then no, that's not what you need. You need the "seeds" that come out of the top of the plant.


----------



## Kellog (Mar 3, 2012)

Immolatus said:


> Garlic was the first thing I planted, and after 1.5 yrs I moved it into the garden, and it hadnt grown a bulb at all. The plants are still there and growing nicely, Im just wondering how long it has to be for me to get a clove out of one?
> Still havent planted much outside, still getting cold snaps but Sunday its supposed to be in the 80's. If it stays warn next week I will go nutz on the planting...


Dunno if this applies to your situation but I found this info at:
http://www.gardenmuse.ca/questions/garlic_rounds.html 
_*Why didn't my garlic bulbs form cloves?*

"Garlic is normally planted in the fall and harvested the following summer once its leaves have died back. During the cool months, when your garlic is actively growing, the bulb swells into one large, undivided bulb. As it matures, the bulb separates into individual cloves, forming as many as it can before the hot weather arrives. Sometimes, as you're discovering, this process doesn't fully complete, resulting in solid bulbs that are sometimes referred to as 'single clove garlic' or 'garlic rounds'.

There are a couple of reasons why a garlic bulb will fail to form cloves. The most common is that the bulb was planted in the early spring and didn't have enough time to mature before the hot summer weather arrived, arresting the bulb's development before it had a chance to form cloves.

Another reason is that even if you planted your garlic bulbs in the fall, they may not have been cold enough, long enough to form cloves. Under normal circumstances, exposing garlic to forty days of temperatures under 5°C isn't a problem, but if you applied mulch to your garden prior to the ground freezing, you may have accidentally made things just a little too cozy for your garlic. This year try to either leave your garlic unmulched or add a thin layer after the ground freezes to avoid this problem. Growing garlic in a greenhouse or a cold frame can also have the same effect.

Sometimes garlic will form a single clove for no obvious reason. It is not uncommon when growing a bunch of garlic to have one of them form a single clove while the bulbs on either side form cloves properly. This usually gets blamed on faulty genetics.

The good news is that if you replant your single clove garlic this fall, it should form a bulb with fully individuated cloves next year. The bad news is, of course, that it will have taken you two years to produce the results you were hoping to produce in one. Not ideal, but not the end of the world either.

If you have a mixture of single clove garlic bulbs and bulbs with fully developed cloves, plant the fully developed cloves and keep the single cloves bulbs for your kitchen. Their thick skins mean they store longer and peel easier than standard cloves. "_


----------



## goatlady (Nov 7, 2011)

I ALWAYS plant individual cloves from garlic bulbs I purchase at the grocery store (until I get my first crop harvested) and always get back nice BIG bulbs in return. I then save the biggest of those home grown bulbs to break apart into cloves to plant the next year. Each clove of a garlic bulb contains the makings of an entire new bulb which itself will be conposed of many cloves each of which contain... One certainly can let a garlic bulb bolt and set seed and collect that seed and then plant the seed and when a sprout starts transplant into the garden and then wait at least 18 months for it to form a garlic bulb. Much faster and better return for time and effort to just plant cloves.


----------



## Immolatus (Feb 20, 2011)

Got some more garlic today along with asparagus, lettuce, cukes and a purple tomato?


----------



## LilRedHen (Aug 28, 2011)

partdeux said:


> are you talking about cloves from the grocery store, then no, that's not what you need. You need the "seeds" that come out of the top of the plant.


I started my garlic with cloves from a friend and added some cloves from the grocery store. I plant in the fall and take them up the next July when they start dying. I'll post a picture of the garlic bed tomorrow.

I tried one year the seeds from the plant, they came up 3 years later, but are pretty puny.


----------



## LilRedHen (Aug 28, 2011)

Picture of my garlic bed yesterday, planted last November:


----------



## Immolatus (Feb 20, 2011)

LilRed, thats what mine look like, but the 'bulb' looks like what Kellog describes, more like a small onion than a clove. I did pull one up to try it, at least it had a mildly garlic taste. I planted the bulbs I bought, we shall see.


----------



## LilRedHen (Aug 28, 2011)

Immolatus said:


> LilRed, thats what mine look like, but the 'bulb' looks like what Kellog describes, more like a small onion than a clove. I did pull one up to try it, at least it had a mildly garlic taste. I planted the bulbs I bought, we shall see.


Look on the bright side, if you look at the grocery store, you will find 'Giant garlic' that is 3 times the cost of regular garlic cloves.


----------

