Garlic Patch 2020

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's a sunny, cool day  (8 degrees C at 12:30pm).  I started on the garlic patch around 8:30am, when it was still frosty out.  The soil in this garden is heavy on clay, and it was wet from the rain we had a few days ago.  Plucking weeds and working in cold, frosty, sticky soil...uhg!  It made the hot chocolate I enjoyed once I'd finished planting taste that much sweeter.

These are my garden shoes, after I'd pulled most of the gumbo off!

 

 

The patch this year is in the South garden.  Planted are:

Brown Tempest (Glazed Purple Stripe) - small cloves, planted in a rectangular plastic container at the front of the patch.

Northern Quebec (Porcelain) –   NQ bulbils (tiny, like grains of rice) in a round plastic pot at the front of the patch.  Also 3 rows of cloves.  Many of them were “fused”/double cloves.   The NQ wrappers are white.

Central Siberian (Marbled Purple Stripe) – 1 row, plus a few planted around the plastic containers. Small cloves.

Baba Franchuk’s  (Rocambole) - 7 rounds collected at the end of this summer.  The wrappers on the bulbs of Baba Franchuk's were so thin/fragile that they fell apart and exposed the garlic when I separated them, so I didn’t plant the cloves.  The rounds were planted in the same row as the Kiev cloves.

Kiev (Rocambole) – 5 cloves from the solitary bulb that made it through the summer!  Planted in the same row as the BF rounds.

Red Russian (Marbled Purple Stripe) - 5 rows of cloves.

 

 

 

The garlic patch was covered by some leaf and grass clippings saved from last Fall.  More mulch  is needed, so hopefully we can mow the grass and fallen leaves this week.  

 

 

Garlic Plot Tilled and First Snow

   Yesterday, R. was able to get the rototiller and till a section of the South garden.  The gardens had little mulch on them this summer, so working the ground was like working cement.  It looks like I might get a garlic patch planted this Fall yet, albeit two to three weeks later than normal.  Once the ground has dried out a bit (it rained overnight and throughout today), I'll weed and get the garlic in.  We'll see next Spring how well the cloves and bulbils handled being planted in cold soil.

   Though we have had a few light frosts, we still have not experienced a hard frost.  It's so unusual not to have had several hard frosts by the second week of October.  However, I did a double take when looking out the window a few minutes ago: it is snowing!  Big, wet, fluffy flakes.  The first snow of the season.

   Slowly, but surely, the tomatoes are being cooked down and the sauce either frozen or canned. Several jars worth of Principe Borghese, Candy Sweet Icicle, and Bellestar tomatoes have been dehydrated, with another batch or two to go.  It will be so nice to have this done and put away.

   Most of the seeds saved from the garden have finished drying, have been labeled, and stored.  I finished putting together a package of seeds to send in to the Annual Canadian Autumn Seed Exchange hosted by Nicky North (this is it's 10th year running).  I missed participating last year, but am eager to see what kinds of seeds arrive in my return package in a few months' time.  It's like Christmas morning, receiving the return package from this exchange!

Tomatoes 2020

 

Hungarian Heart  - reddish-pink, large oxheart (often 1lb or more), heirloom, indeterminate, paste/canner/fresh, crack-resistant, few seeds, origin: Hungary, ~ 80-85 DTM.

 

Bellestar - red, medium-size, blocky/round 4-5oz fruits, paste, Canadian heirloom, determinate, compact, early set, ~70 DTM. Meaty and solid.  I will grow these again.

Candy Sweet Icicle - pink w/gold and orange stripes, large pointy cherry, open-pollinated, indetereminate, pretty, sweet and flavourful, mid-season, 70-80 DTM.  Tasty!  I will grow these again.

Cream Sausage - pale yellow/cream, open-pollinated, determinate, productive, paste/salsa, very mild citrousy flavour, mid-season, 75-80 DTM. 

 

Black Sea Man - brown/black, heirloom, beefsteak, 8-12 oz, rich flavour, slicer, determinate, can be grown in large containers, Russian origin, ~ 75 DTM.  One of my favourites.

 

 

Black Krim - black/purple, heirloom, beefsteak, indeterminate, very flavourful, slicer, ~ 80 DTM/midseason. 

Auria - red, heirloom, paste/canner/cooking, elongated/banana, sometimes called “Adam” in the Ukraine (where it originated), indeterminate, wispy foliage, midseason. Seems prone to blossom end rot.

 

Principe Borghese - red, heirloom, determinate, cherry, dry, few seeds, good for sundried tomatoes,~ 75 DTM.  Very productive and dependable, one of my favourites.

 

Jewish - red oxheart, heirloom, rare, indeterminate, few seeds, wispy/sprawling foliage, ~ 80-85 DTM.  Thick skin, solid tomato, good for sauce.

 

Work Release Paste - pink, heirloom, heart-shaped, paste, indeterminate, large, ~75-80 DTM.  Thin skin, easy to process. Originally from the Hudson Correctional Facility in Hudson, NY, USA.

Striped German - bicolour yellow marbled w/red, heirloom, indeterminate, large beefsteak, fruity flavour, ~ 85 DTM.

 

 

The largest tomato of the season was a Hungarian Heart, weighing 2lbs 6.7oz the day it was picked.

 

 Once ripe, a little less.

Canada Geese, Hazy Skies - Wrapping Things Up

 

   The days are noticeably shorter and I have been sleeping more deeply at night.  It feels strange to wake up early and find that it's still dark.  I miss waking up to bright sunshine and birds singing at 5:00am.  Time to transition into cozy mode.

   We have had the furnace on in the mornings a few times to take the chill out of the air.  Overall, though, it has been a mild September, with no killing frosts yet (as of September 24th - that's unsual) and none forecast for the next two weeks.

   Flocks of Canada geese have been making their way overhead almost daily.  There have been some large groups - you can hear them coming long before you spot them.

   I gradually started bringing in the dry bush bean plants to hang in the second week of September.  Most are inside now, except for a Ruckle bean plant. 

   On the 15th (a very cool, cloudy, damp day), I picked most the tomatoes that were in the East garden and in containers along the driveway because the first frost was forecast for that night.  Harvested on - or just before - the 15th were Jewish, Candy Sweet Icicle, Black Krim, Wentzell, Emerald Evergreen, and Black Sea Man.  I left the tomatoes growing along the south side of the house in-ground and covered them that night.  I also pulled the remainder of the Gaspe Flint corn and a few of the Agate Pinto bean pods to bring inside to dry in case the frost zapped those plants.  Most of the Agate Pinto beans on the plants are still green and not ready to harvest.

(Click on pictures to enlarge.)

 

   On the morning of the 16, there were signs outside of a light frost.  The only things that got zapped were the winter squash (Galeux D'Eysines) plants.  Arhg.  Some of those squash weren't fully mature yet, so I left them on the vines for a few more days.

 

   There are little boxes, plates, and long, flat cardboard trays of bean pods, nasturtium seeds, tomato seeds, and garlic bulbils set all around the plant room and living room to dry.  Several buckets of green tomatoes are in the laundry room, waiting to be boxed up in newspaper so they can ripen.

Tene's beans (dry/bush)

 Beka Brown (dry/bush)

Agate pinto beans (dry bush w/runners)

Nasturtium seeds

 

   The Red Swan and Calima beans that grew were picked late in the season and are drying down indoors.  These varieties were not eaten fresh or processed for freezing this year (small plants, lots of slug damage); I am saving seed from them instead.

   The Early Prolific Summer Squash plants produced 3 or 4 small squash, so I guess it's more accurate to say that they underperformed rather than counting them as a crop failure.

   The Long Pie Pumpkin, Lower Salmon River squash, and Cole tomatoes that were planted at R's family's farm were all either killed by frost damage early in the season or inhibited by the cool, wet weather this summer.  None of pumpkins produced and we only got 4 small Cole tomatoes (a variety that typically produces very well). One average-size and one tiny Lower Salmon River were harvested (both pictured below).

 

   Most of the carrots and 4 little cabbages are still in the raised beds.  They can withstand light frosts, so should be fine outside for a while longer. 

   September 17th was a carrot processing day.  It's easy to forget how much time it consumes to pull, wash, peel, chop, blanch, and then dehydrate them.  Hours.  Thank goodness for podcasts.  By the time I'm through processing the second batch of carrots, I am wondering what the hell I was thinking planting them in the first place. Mid-winter, though, when you can just open a jar and add dehydrated carrots to a soup or stew, I'm glad I put in the effort.

   September 18 & 19 - I picked the Bellestar and half the Principe Borghese tomatoes.  The Galeux D'Eysines squash were harvested as well as a few of the Work Release Paste tomatoes that were best for seed saving.  I processed another batch of carrots.  The air was hazy these two days and smelled like a giant campfire.  Smoke from the massive wildfires throughout the US west coast had reached northern BC.  

 

September 23 - Picked the remainder of the Principe Borghese tomatoes.  Pulled the Agate pinto beans and hung the plants to dry.

September 24 - Picked the Hungarian Heart tomatoes.

Setpember 26 - Picked the Striped German and Work Release Paste tomatoes.

   The only things remaining in the garden are the sunflowers, cosmos, lemon balm, mint, sage, a bit of kale, carrots, a single Ruckle bean plant (the pods are being stubborn and are remaining green), 3 cabbage, and a few volunteer pansies.

 

   The crop failures this year were the peas (Green Arrow and Laxton's Progress), cauliflower, White Scallop summer squash, Table King Acorn squash,  Romano beans, Anaheim peppers, and Norland potatoes. 

   There are several jars of fermenting tomato seeds on the go. Black Sea Man, Cream Sausage, and Jewish (left to right) are pictured in the jars below.  The problem with using the cat tree as the platform for pictures (the best light is in the plant room) is that curious kitties are irresistibly drawn to things that are fragile or carefully arranged.  Case in point...