Planting garlic

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garlic 92314Thinking ahead to next summer, how much garlic do you want? I usually don’t grow that much only because it takes up space for a long time. Planting now will get you heads of garlic in 9 months-at least in zone 6. Growing your own garlic turns out a sweeter and more aromatic head than you would otherwise get in stores. I have 3 squares planted for a total of 27 heads of garlic-perfect for us. Right now I’ve got 4 more weeks of planting things to get ready for the winter garden. This year I’m doing something a little different-I’ll be harvesting all winter out of my 4X16′ bed, but I am overwintering my entire 2X16′ bed with only 5 crops. This will give me a great head start come early spring. The remaining 5 boxes will slowly be put away for the winter.

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Fall garden heading into winter

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91414 fall gardenThe gardens have been spectacular this year! It’s certainly slowing down but it’s starting to transition to the full winter garden. The main 4X16′ bed will be all I do this winter. Last year I also winter gardened in the 2X16′ next to it. I’ll be using that bed to overwinter 4 or 5 different things to get a quick jump on spring. To date I’ve planted kale, tatsoi, beets, scallions, leeks, spinach, claytonia, cilantro, lettuce, chard, mache, minutina, and turnips for the winter harvest. I’ll be doing a repeat planting of many of those next week. Arugula, mizuna, and radishes will finish off the planting season and will be completed by October 20th. It’s going to be a great winter.[ois skin=”below post”]

A look at a variety of summercrisp lettuce

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mottistone august 2014This is one of the many varieties of summercrisp lettuce that I grew this summer. We’ve come through the hottest months of the year and now it’s time for us to start eating this delicious lettuce. It’s very difficult to successfully grow lettuce in our hot summers but with a few tricks anybody can do it. My ebook that’s all about this subject-growing lettuce in hot weather-didn’t make it out in time. I finished it but it was too late. I’ll be publishing it in the spring of ‘2015. In the meantime, as you look at this wonderful head of lettuce and think to yourself “I should have planted some of this”-start your fall and/or winter garden right now. Or you’ll be saying the same thing to yourself in another 6 weeks with some of the other things I’ll be growing. I’ll be having my last class of the year in a few weeks. We’ll be discussing low tunnels and other things that will help you have an eventful winter season.[ois skin=”below post”]

Got leeks?

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leek and potato soupThis is gardening site but the taste of some of the things coming out of the garden just can’t be matched anywhere! This potato leek soup was our dinner tonight, along with fresh harvested corn and toasted baguettes. You can buy all of the things you need to make this at any grocery store, but you cannot come close to what it tastes like with just harvested fresh crops. Potatoes, leeks, and chives-so easy, and so good. In the SFG system, you can sneak by with 9 leaks per square. A traditional row garden will take up 3 linear feet to have the same yield. You can decide which system is better. These are bandit leeks from JSS.[ois skin=”below post”]

This is a summer lettuce!

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cherokee summer lettuce 081516This tastes so awesome! No bitterness at all-a bavarian lettuce variety that grew right through a couple of 100 degree days and most the rest of the days in the mid to high 90’s. There are some very unique advantages to the SFG system, and this shows why. If you can protect your crops and lower the temperatures by 10-15 degrees, you can do anything you want with lettuce. For most folks the hot weather is largely behind us. Maybe southern California with it’s hot month of September is a candidate for this. You really should give it a try. If you’re tired of lettuce failure in the summer months and the bitter taste of the lettuce that remains in late spring, try some of these great summer lettuces.

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