Planting Garlic for Fall

My fresh stock of locally grown garlic

I like to plant the larger outer sections of the cloves

Getting a little help from my neighbor's kitten, Turkey

Growing garlic has always been a hit or miss proposition for me. I really enjoy growing garlic, but some autumns I just don’t get around to planting it. I run into issues of what variety to grow, where to plant, and when to plant. Even though I know that there are many varieties available through mail order and online seed companies, I have just in the past purchased cloves from my local supermarket, with mixed results at best. This season, after doing a little research, I am going to employ a different strategy.

Instead of buying garlic of unknown variety from my local grocer, I visited a local vegetable stand where they had beautiful cloves on sale that were locally grown, and purchased about five of the plumpest ones I could find. I’m going to go with the theory that this locally grown garlic is a variety that will do well in my area, and be more acclimated to my weather and soil conditions.

I prepared a new bed right next to my hoop house, took theses cloves and broke off the larger outer portions, and planted them about two inches deep, about 6 inches apart, kind of in the way one would plant fall bulbs for spring. These cloves should start sprouting quickly, and thrive in the cooler soil. They will sprout up again in early spring, and should be ready to harvest after the stalks die back in July. If this variety works out, I will save the best cloves, and replant them again next fall. If this theory holds up, and I repeat this season after season, I should have a customized type that should do really well for me in my soil, year after year.

One success that I have had every time I have planted garlic is to confirm the legend that garlic does indeed keep vampires away from my family and property, as we have suffered no vampire attacks to my knowledge, during the years of my growing it. I have not, however, had any success whatsoever in finding a variety that keeps movies about vampires away, as those seem to be piling up in my DVD library with disturbing regularity!

Hoop House

My hoop house is finally close to completion. I look forward to using it during the colder months of the year. I have already planted lettuce, spinach, onion starts and turnips in it, and I have a few tomato plants inside it.  And even though I didn’t get the supports in on time, and they are sprawling all over the floor, they are still producing tomatoes! At the present time I am studying the temperature variations on the inside so I will hopefully know what to expect while growing in the future.  This should be good for plenty of upcoming topics in the coming months. A special thanks to Mr. Robert Bird of Salina, Utah for his great design and advice on this project. But of course, if this thing doesn’t work out, he will get all the blame too!!!

Fall Cover Crops

 

When autumn arrives, and my warm season crops begin to die, I like to use this opportunity to improve my soil for next season. Above is a photo of my former melon and summer squash patch. I have chopped up the dead plants, added loads of fresh and not so fresh grass clippings, added generous amounts of chicken litter, spread them all out evenly, and tilled them right into the soil with my tiller, which I have named Aimee Mann.  After everything has been mixed together thoroughly, I get to add my favorite winter green manure cover crop, oats! I buy oats from my local feed store, and spread them out evenly, till them in lightly to cover them, and then water it all in.

The oats serve a couple of purposes. First and foremost, they are valuable for securing the soil during the harsh winters we have here in northern Utah, and the roots not only keep my soil in place, they add additional valuable organic matter in that I work in when the winter is over. Secondly, with oats being an annual grass, I usually don’t have to worry about them resprouting in the springtime, and becoming pesky weeds. At that time they just look like dead grass, and the root systems have partly decomposed by the time tilling season rolls around.

I like using oats because they are relatively cheap and readily available in my area. If I have some extra pea seed available, I like to mix it in with the oats for some extra added nitrogen for my soil.  Some green manure cover crops available in many areas include annual rye grass, hairy vetch, clover, wheat, and the options go on and on. There are also some professionally available cover crop mixes available through online retailers such as Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Shumways that I believe would be an excellent, and perhaps more effective option, but cost is a factor to be considered with such purchases.  

As the fall season moves on, and as additional crops are finished and die, I try to prepare each section this way as weather permits.

Cole Crops in the Fall

Fall is an excellent time to grow cole crops such as broccoli, cabbage, and different varieties of cauliflower.  The cool fall weather makes them produce better and sweeter, and most of the bugs that bother them in the spring are long gone, so temptations to spend money on any control are greatly reduced. The trick I have found for a successful fall crop is to go with transplants, but I have not had much success growing my own cole starts during the summer months.  My trick is that I have found in late June that several local nurseries that have some cole starts left over from earlier in the spring.  At that time I buy what I can, and transplant in spots where peas, beets, or other early season crop has been harvested.  Even if I have to wait a little while for those other crops to mature, I keep those transplants healthy as long as I can until space is available. The transplants may sulk a little bit in the hot weather, but as summer progresses, and as the weather cools, most of my plants are in the perfect position to thrive, and I’m harvesting by early October.  This year I was lucky enough to find cauliflower varieties including Cheddar, Purple, and a Romanesco type that looks quite peculiar, but tastes really good, and these varieties require no blanching at all.

 My daughter McKella, modeling some of this season's Cheddar cauliflower!

I always found this Romanesco variety of cauliflower to appear quite evil, but it is my family's favorite! I really need to try Brussell Sprouts next year!

Chickens

Chickens play an important part in the operation of my garden. Not only do they provide fresh eggs that are superior to anything that you can buy in a store, they are can be vital in processing weeds, bugs, trimmings, and culled fruit into fertilizer that in turn, feeds my plants.  My chickens are not free ranged because of the dogs in my neighborhood, so I bring the range in to them. They do love the pig weed, purslane and mallow that grow so well and numerous in my soil. They will often leave their regular feed to feast on a fresh batch of weeds that I have just pulled. One of their favorite foods is fresh cut lawn grass. I empty my catcher on the floor of the hen house, and what the chickens don't eat outright, they move around and mix it up with the existing litter, which is a combination of leaves, sawdust, and shavings from my wood shop and garden waste the chickens did not eat. This makes an excellent soil amendment. In the fall, my kids and I go to work,  and we then empty hen house litter with a shovel and five gallon buckets, and spread the material out in the garden for the litter to be tilled in and cure out over the winter.  Being that fresh chicken manure can burn plants, the fall rain and winter snows mellows the manure into a state that can be beneficial to the plants. Chickens are also fun to watch. I recommend chickens to anybody who is able to keep some.

Sweet Corn

Every year I enjoy fresh sweet corn from my garden. This year I have been growing "Peaches and Cream", a bicolor SE variety from Mountain State Seeds. This year it has been growing very well, even though the ears are a little on the small size, and the earworms have been pretty active. I have not been using any commercial fertilizer on my crop this year. Last season I did apply a lot of lawn clippings to the soil, hoping that it would provide enough nitrogen and other nutrients to the soil. I also did a manure tea experiment with some of the corn this year, with no visible benefit observed. I do have plenty of chicken manure available to me, and I was hoping to find a different way to take advantage of this resource. I have been coming to the end of my first crop of sweet corn, and the second crop should be ready towards the end of the week.

Suprise Early Frost

I got suprised by a unexpected frost this morning. My squash and melons took a hard hit, with the pumpkins and cantaloupe being just about destroyed. My peppers and tomatoes were also showing some signs of frost damage. I should have paid better attention to the weather service, but I have never had a frost this early in the season. Lesson learned.

September is a Time of Harvest and Preparation

Welcome to Rob's Vegetable Garden! I have been thinking about starting a blog about vegetable gardening for awhile, and I figure a blog would be a helpful way to document and record what I am doing throughout the year.  I enjoy all aspects of vegetable gardening; of coarse some things I like more than others! September has arrived and I am busy with harvesting vegetables, making salsa from what I grow, planting and preparing for fall gardening, and completing my new hoop house. Being that gardening is a hobby that I enjoy, I always like to encourage people to grow some of their own food, on what ever space they may have available to them. I am not strictly, nor do I claim to be an "Organic" gardener, but I like to use many organic techniques for many reasons that I will discuss in further posts. I would enjoy reading any comments you might have, along with any pointers or advise.