Ok, thanks!

Hopefully they store well, I plan to use some for planting in October.

This is the bulk of my Cabernet red onion harvest. Not very impressed but could be worse. There are a few big ones still hanging in there.

The Ailsa Craigs are already bigger than these guys and still have life in them.

Wow I just cut the first one (Cabernet) and it is super pungent. Haven't had an onion like that in a long time. Love the strong flavor.

Nice looking harvest Peter! Most of my reds were smaller than the Candy and Superstar as well and that is fine with me since I don't often cook with the reds and mostly use them fresh on salads and burgers so don't need as much at one time.

Came back from Wisconsin on Thursday. Saw a lot of corn and beans along the highway!!! Dutch, it does seem like the crops were well ahead of normal years in Iowa and northern Missouri. Here in Missouri we were having a pretty dry summer until July 1, but since then it has rained several inches which was much needed. I have not had to water anything for a couple weeks.

I came back to horn worms on the tomatoes and squash bugs on the cucumbers. Fed the horn worms to the chickens and drowned several dozen squash bugs in soapy water. I did harvest 6 Big Beef toms and 2 Black Krim. One Big Beef had a white furry caterpillar on it that was 'peeling' the skin off but not eating the flesh....never seen that before. Had to feed that one to the chickens and then treated all of the toms and peppers with BTK.

Made the first batch of pickles on Friday and need to do another batch tonight.

Welcome back, Jack!

How was the garlic harvest up there??

Thanks Chris. We only harvested 2 types of by brother's garlic. One was an unknown purple stripe that I gave him a couple years ago...that did OK but no bulbs over about 1.5". The other type was Chesnok Red and it was even smaller. Both types had almost fully browned down so it wasn't going to get bigger. The other types he is growing (Music, German White, Spanish Roja, and Purple Glazer) were much bigger plants and still had another week or 2 left. He should get some nice sized bulbs off of the Music and GW at least.

It looked like he didn't weed the garlic much if at all and I think that is one reason for the small bulbs and he said he only fertilized 2 times and I don't think that was enough with his sandy soil. I also did not give him the best seed stock for the PG, RR, and CR last year...I kept that for my garden of course :).

I have just about finished cleaning all of my garlic. I ran into a dozen or so bulbs that had soft necks and that is a sign of rot and poor storage. I am going to slice and dehydrate those bulbs next weekend before they go bad.

Did you supply him with all the seed stock? Yeah the GW, the few that I planted, did well for me. Music was mixed.

I think you just confirmed my fear. I was squeezing the necks this past weekend to feel for the hard neck and noticed a bunch of spongy necks. That's very unfortunate, if that means they are rotted. If that's true, I won't have viable seed from the biggest heads :-/ Guess I'll find out soon if that's the case. I did order some German Red, German White and Spanish Roja for the fall, so I won't need much anyway.

Some of the ones I cleaned up. They seemed like they could've cured a little longer. They were a little wet inside still, but were cured for 2 weeks in a shed. The necks were very hard though.

Hi Chris,

It is always a temptation to peel garlic out too far before storing it. I have done a bit of that myself this summer. It also pays to let the whole stem dry down almost completely dry before removing it. The roots can come off earlier. I sorta doubt one can cure too long if the temps stay up, but one can certainly cure too short.

A good lesson for next year. I left a bunch to continue drying after discovering these weren't quite ready. They likely won't last too long anyway because garlic is frequently used in my house.

I too grew impatient and cleaned up my garlic after 2 weeks, but I left the stems on and brought them inside. All the dead leaves etc were getting moldy.

Those look really nice Chris.

Chris - yes I did give my brother all of his seed stock over the last 3 years. Your bulbs cleaned up really nice!!

It does seem for me that some of the largest bulbs have a greater tendency to have the soft necks after curing but it is a small percentage this year at least. I don't know that it can affect other bulbs stored close by like it can in onions but I keep them separated just in case and use them first. If the rot spreads to the bulb/cloves it seems to be only in the tips.

It is pouring here as I type and I think I hear small hail hitting my office window but it is still dark out so can't tell for sure. Just glad the sky didn't open up until I got to work!

Thanks, gents. I need to grow more next year. I want to give some away, but don't have a lot.

I had a couple that were very colorful and I wish I knew what variety it was. They were purplish, but all small though.

Hope to see all of your finished products soon!

I think I have enough ripe/semi-ripe tomatoes to make a batch of salsa this weekend. I picked 13 Big Beef that were blushing last night and a couple Black Krim totaling 5.5 lbs. I already had 6 ripening in the kitchen. I will also get to use some of the fresh garlic and onions from the garden as well as Jalapenos and sweet peppers.

If you have never canned Annie's Salsa recipe, I highly recommend it. You can find the recipe on the harvest forum.

I will also be canning some more pickles and my first batch of dilly beans over the weekend. I won't have time to mow!!!

I do love a good salsa. I'm gonna give that a try! Thanks, Jack.

Jack, you are waaay ahead of me. I've picked some jalapeños and very few Sun Golds, but all of the beefsteak varieties are far from ready.

I am harvesting a lot right now as the season peaks: onions, leeks, beets, carrots, lettuce, potatoes, beans, still some peas, zucchini up the wazoo, banana peppers turning yellow (leaving most of my peppers to turn red and freeze), cabbage, my first eggplants this weekend, but no tomatoes except a few Sungolds. I didn't put much effort into them this year, growing the transplants, or replenishing the soil. It will be another month before I get enough tomatoes to preserve anything, but I don't really care that much, I still have tons of canned sauce.

My cukes I tried growing for the first time are also off to a very slow and stunted start, I planted them in a really bad spot and they started off in basically full shade. I am only growing them to try and make some pickles, the fresh cukes never get eaten in our house.

Peter, I'm having a similar experience with my cukes as well.

A few veggies seem to be off to a slower start this year. I'm disappointed in the green beans and zucchini this year. I think the large maple tree in my yard has extended enough now that it's causing growing problems on the north side of the garden :-/ I need to find additional space for growing. This space I have isn't enough for my gardening appetite.

To the right is my planting stock. The left is the rest of my harvest, minus the 6 split/damaged bulbs that went for early use. The bulbs have 4-6 cloves each. They have purple and yellow coloring. I was afraid the yellow meant garlic bloat nematoes, but they had excellent roots.

Going to add another variety for next year. Rocambole maybe. Russian Red did well for me the first year, minus the rotting, which is kind of a big asterisk...Are there varieties less likely to rot? I will also make a well drained raised bed.

I think yours look better than mine Chris :)

Nice Peter! - I don't know if there are any particular varieties more prone to rot than others. It seems that the plants with the thicker stems may be more susceptible than the thinner stemmed plants. It could just be that rain water somehow infiltrated thru the scape 'canal'? IDK? Next year I think I may cut the scapes further up instead of right where they emerge to see if that helps any. I only had a dozen or so that were questionable this year and most of those appear to be drying down OK in my basement with a fan blowing on them.

I'll take a few pictures of my cleaned garlic after I finish it up this weekend. I have a plastic 12 rack storage bin system that I picked up at a yard sale for a couple bucks. It makes it easy to keep the different types separated and allows good air circulation.

My Vertina cukes are really doing well and are very productive, I am going to continue to grow these each year. Alibi is doing OK but a lot of the fruit are fat on the stem end and then narrow down to a point on the flower end...kind of like a top. So far County fair is doing rather poorly but that may be due to lack of sufficient sun. H19 Little leaf are cute little plants with tiny leaves. They are flowering but not yet producing.

Chris - When making Annie's Salsa I use 1/3 cup Realemon, 1/3 cup Realime, and 1/3 cup Apple Cider vInegar instead of just the AC vinegar. I also increase the ratio of Jalapenos to Sweet Peppers to up the heat a little (like half and half, total peppers should be 1 3/4 cup. Other than that I follow the recipe exactly.

Annie's Salsa

Those look great, Peter! I actually like that they all have those purplish striations. Has more character than just an all-white garlic head. I'm going to clean up the rest of the garlic this weekend, and I hope nothing is rotted. I need to determine what I'm using for seed stock.

Jack, the Vertina is the parthenocarpic variety, right? Guess everything worked out well!

Thanks, Jack! I'll make my first attempt when I have enough ripe tomatoes. Those Carmen sweet peppers get big! I have 2 that are at least 8". My 2 jalape­no plants have loads of peppers on them, but I'm noticing on 1 plant that a lot of them have that black coloring. Hope that's not a bad sign.

Yea, Vertina are the parthenocarpic ones. Haven't had any problems with them getting misshapen fruit even though the bumble bees are hitting them regularly. If I pick them every 4-5 days they are a real nice 2-4" size for making whole pickles and gherkins but I also leave a few to grow on a bit to use for fresh eating.

I am waiting for my first Carmen to turn completely red. It should be done by this weekend. I have picked 6 of the Cornito Giallo which are smaller than Carmen and yellow when ripe (not orange like Reimer's seed claimed). Also the Corno di Torro seed I bought from Reimer turned out to be a bell pepper that is yellow when ripe...it is very good producer though but the fruit are not very big.

Sometimes my Jalapenos will develop a black splotchy coloring when turning from green to red...not a problem. Nor is what is called 'corking'.

I get black blotches at times on the fruits on my Sweet Banana peppers especially when the weather is mixed; sometimes they fade away, sometime not. I have not noticed any flavor problems.

The rocoambole variety KILLARNEY RED is supposed to be more tolerant of wet conditions than most. I have not grown it, but my collected rocambole is proven to be tolerant of a heavier soil; so one of these rocamboles may be the answer to a persistant rot problem, assuming that excess moisture is at the root of the issue.

I was able to get my hands on Killarney Red and planted them October 2015. They are doing extremely well. I haven't had a chance to harvest them yet but dug around the base of one and at the end of May was approximately already 2" wide. They are growing in a raised bed in zone 6b.

Wow! 2" already and that was 6 weeks ago. IN 6b I would think that your garlic would be ready to dig by now. I've not grown Killarney Red but have heard good things about it.

I grew 3 Rocambole types this year and am going to drop the Yugoslavian for next year as it has not shown much promise in my garden. With the short storage of Rocs, I don't want to have too many in my planting or I will be scrambling to use it all by Thanksgiving.

If I were to add any rocambole varieties, I think that Killarny Red would be a top contender. I am moving the other way however, with a very nice porcelain, Music, a productive marbled purple stripe, Siberian, almost as big as the Music, as is Japanese, and the heirloom rocambole has sized up very well with its biggest very close to the others. Vietnanese Red is a little smaller and is on the bubble. This year I added Xian and if that does ok for a turban, that will be it.

This year's garlic crop:

mgct, where did you get your seed garlic?

Nice haul there Dutch. :)

Peter - I bought Killarney Red from Summerwood Garlic in Washington state. I don't see Killarney Red listed on their website (just checked). They have done really well. I am a bit late in harvesting them due to time constraints and rain. I hope to get them out this Sunday, as it looks like more rain Monday. German Extra Hardy and Russian Red were harvested last night before it started raining here in CT. Both did extremely well. I harvested Spanish Roja towards the end of June that did well also. I could have waited until July and it would have been even bigger. I let some scapes form bulbils from each variety.

They look nice, hopefully they will store ok for you anyway. A couple splitters to use first. Or are you not going to try to store them as is?

What other varieties are you growing? Why'd you pick Spanish Roja?

My seed grown Megaton leeks are looking wonderful. They are very short and stocky though, I want to blanch them more but I am not sure how. I have already hilled them with tons of mulch and compost but it settles down into nothing.

I let the overwintered Lancelot go to seed to harvest seed. Should I put a paper bag over the flower heads?

Wow, your leeks look awesome! How do you eat them? I'm definitely going to give them a better try next year. I want to have some homemade, homegrown potato leek soup.

I'll be growing German Red, German White and the Music, along with the Spanish Roja. I chose Spanish Roja because I've heard great things about it. One of Jack's favorite too, I believe. Highmowingseeds.com offers it, which is where I bought the Music from last year. The minimum you can buy is 1lb, so that will make up the majority of my garlic.

The leeks get chopped and used anywhere onions are, or in large amounts in soup/stew and saunteed in certain dishes. Most of this will get chopped and frozen for the winter.

That Spanish Roja looks pretty fantastic... I may be joining you on that one.

Hey Jack, what spacing do you use for garlic in raised beds?

Yep...Spanish Roja is a real good one and gave me some really nice bulbs this year. The only drawback is that it won't store past November or so but I use it early and then either pickle or dehydrate any that is left in November.

I used a couple leeks last night in a great Mongolian Beef stir fry. The recipe only calls for beef, leeks, and ginger but I added some sweet peppers and yellow squash as well. I imagine you could substitute egg plant for the beef. I am down to 4 leeks remaining from my first planting in March and a couple of them are getting too big I think. I have another 30+ from a late May planting as well but part of them are losing a space battle with some bush beans planted next to them. The beans should be done by early August so the leeks can get more sun then.

Peter - I used 6" spacing within rows spaced 9" apart last year (5 rows x 19 plants/row in a 4x10 bed). Prior years I used a 6" grid (7 rows x 19 plants/row). This fall I am going to split the difference and do (6 rows x 19 plants/row). I am not sure if it makes much difference but I wanted to give the plants a little more airflow last year and the wider row spacing did make it a little easier to harvest.

I agree that Rocamboles such as Spanish Roja are excellent garlics but with short storage capability. I have never been able to get most up to full size, except for Russian Red which gives nice fat bulbs and cloves.

Spacing depends on your available space. Less than 4" between plants can impact bulb size unless you assure enough water and nutrients, and I consider 6" to be optimal. I plant four 50' rows at 12" apart, and 6" spacing between plants. This gives them good sunlight and air flow, and weeding from either side is easy.

After many years of experimenting with different varieties, I have now narrowed my garlic crop to three - Music, Estonian Red, and Russian Red. I prefer large bulbs with just 4-6 fat cloves each.

Tom

The wider spacing also makes weed control a bit easier, if you have to hoe between the plants and the rows. I have been planting my garlics and my onions on a 6 x 6 grid, which I intend to increase to 8 x 8 next year. I don't always get the mulching done, and often have to cultivate between plants and rows. I expect to use a 3' wide bed so that will be probably 3 rows; so I can straddle it when the plants are young. I am also hoping for an increase in bulb size.

I took a look at my garlic harvest and then a look in the mirror. I realized that if I ate all that garlic I would be a true loner with no friends left! :-) So I gave a bunch away to some coworkers who cook with garlic. I will plant quite a bit less this fall, but hope for bigger bulbs in return.

This week the yellow multipliers and the fingerling potatoes get dug (provided I can handle the heat wave!) And I think the rest of my mini-onions, too, if there is enough of me left... (They were not supposed to be mini-onions, but sometimes things don't quite work out like one wishes.)

I decided to buy a pound of "Colossal" (> 2.5") Russian Red from Big Red Barn, their Music did so well for me, I gave them the repeat business. The colossal size was expensive but hopefully worth it. Looking forward to October! Got to get a well draining raised bed ready for them.

Sounds good! Hope everything does well. The raised bed should definitely help.

A dependable dealer is worth premium prices, especially for seed bulbs that size. On my own I always plant only my largest cloves from the best bulbs, and when I buy I do like you did and go for the largest bulbs offered, provided I have any choice at all. My purchase is for primary seed stock and it always pays to buy as high a quality initial stock as possible. It seems to me that quality suppliers make a very strong effort to offer as large bulbs as possible. Russian Red looks like a very good compliment to Music. I prefer large bulbs with few cloves for my kitchen.

Quick edit note: I find that Siberian (a marbled purple stripe) does very nearly as well for me as Music and makes a decent companion to it. Not one that that the BigRedBarn offers, but is available from some other dependable suppliers. Both are pretty stout raw, but strong on the allicin. For a bit milder but somewhat smaller I also like Vietnamese Red.

Yes, I decided to go with a rocambole to complement the porcelain Music. If I add another variety to plant next season (for 2018) I will go for a Siberian.

Sounds to me like you are developing a strong set of garlics. Good luck.

Good choice on the Russian Red Peter. I think it should do well for you. I am contemplating ordering a pound of the Colossal French Silverskin from Big Red Barn. I did not get over to the local farmers market where the garlic grower had a nice Silverskin last year. I really don't need another variety but I would like to have one that will store into spring. Artichokes haven't done well for me so I thought I would try a Silverskin.

I'll post a picture of the bulbs I got from Big Red Barn, I got IIRC 6 HUGE bulbs... the biggest non-elephant garlic I have ever seen. It is definitely more than the pound I ordered. I can't wait to plant it. I'm going to need to find more space for all this garlic... my wife hates it when I randomly plant stuff all over the place :) (which I can do with the garlic unlike most other things that need fencing)

Wow..you already got your order?

Yea Barb has great customer service. When I ordered Estonia Red from her a couple years ago, she still offered it by the bulb and she sent me an extra one in my order.

Garlic is such an attractive plant that your wife should let you plant it anywhere and everywhere. Just don't plant it near your Horseradish gone wild!

Speaking of HR, I noticed last night that something really likes horseradish leaves. Many of the leaves are just stems and veins. I didn't see the culprits when I looked it over so I'm thinking it may have been the Japanese Beetles that have come and gone. Hopefully it won't affect the root size too much. It usually starts to brown down about now anyway.

Yeah I got it in like 3 days... pretty cool.

Nothing will eat my horseradish but me. :)

Here's the "colossal" Russian Red from Big Red Barn.

It's, well... not red. But that's ok. It is definitely colossal. We'll see what those cloves look like when I crack it open.

As Donald Trump would say...those things are Yuuuuge!! Definitely larger than any Rocambole seed stock that I will be planting this fall. I can't remember what color the clove skins are on RR but I do believe their is some color to them.

Get that new raised bed ready so they have a comfy spot to spend the winter or better yet make it 2 new raised beds.

Unfortunately I am really broke... and I spent a lot on this seed garlic. I have to figure something out on the cheap.

One of the quickest balanced fertilizers is to mow long green grass and leaf fall together. You get a blended mixture of green and brown like you strive for when you build a balanced compost pile and that is mostly broken down already and starts to work almost immediately. Essentially you end up planting in a weak compost pile which can produce fantastic results. BTW squash and pumpkins will love that sort of bed next spring, too, especially if you hill it a bit to augment its naturally good drainage.

Nice bulbs! What size bed are you going to build for it? I'm going to build another small bed myself, so I can do more garlic than I did last year.