Image from 2023 drying
This morning was maybe5-6 hours of harvesting garlic out of the VegBed#4.
It is DONE!
The next step is several hours work in hanging it to dry in the garage with the door open but blocked from critters, windows open and fans blowing air through.
About 3-4 weeks of this and then the garlic bulbs will be cut off from the upper leaves and lower roots, weighed, measured and stored in the cold room.
over 1000 garlic plants with over 49 types
The garlic harvest of 2024 has started early!
On 2024 July 08 the following were harvested:
Ttv5
Iinchelium
Spicey Korean
Yugo red
Spanish antihelion
On 2024 July 09 these were harvested:
Fishlake F30
Fishlake F23
Fishlake F1
Fishlake F40
We are about to be run over with the remnants of hurricane Beryl, so harvest will be suspeneded for a few days.
Is it spring yet? This image from 13 years ago shows snow… much like it was over this past weekend.
We continued to be optimistic and built two more new cold frames.
The hoop cold frame we built last year was too heavy to move easily. it was made of 2″x4″ and was 4’x8′ with poly pies forming a hoop and plastic on top of that. too heavy!
So this year we scaled the concept back to A-frame designs, 4’x 4′ x2′ high, made from 1″x2″ and covered in plastic.
Much much more manageable and lightweight.
We will be adding spike legs to them to insert into the ground in the hopes of keeping them in the ground when the high winds come by.
The 1″x2″x8′ are about $2 each here and each A-frame design took four of them… so about $8 + screws. The plastic was leftover from the wood pellets and was reused.
Pictures to come once the feet get installed.
A short trip to the Selby TCO Agromart resulted in this: a 50″x16′ cattle panel. It is going to make the best climbing trellis that we have ever had for peas and such.
And of course, once that was in, seeds were started… radished and spinach into the cold frame, and 26 types of tomatos started in egg cartons.
Gardening season has begun!
And it is DONE again! The SCGO Garlic Planting of 2023. It went quicker and easier than past years, thanks to a lot of prep work up front. cracking the bulbs ahead of time, each in its own labelled paper bags with name and number of cloves. All of the signage prepped, counted and sorted.
We planted on Monday and Tuesday 2023 October 23 and 24. Last year it was Saturday morning Oct 22 and on Sunday afternoon Oct 23.
Last year we used the 8 hole Dibbler Mark II, 8 spikes in the dibbler, each 1 3/8″ diameter and 7″ long with 5″ spacing between spikes. This caused Kevin some injury that took months to heal, so we chopped off the two end spikes and went back to 6 hole rows.
We planted in VegBed4’s eastern end going from north to south and moving the subbeds west. The signage is laminated laser printed names staples to 1×2″x1′ stakes. This naming system has shown to stand up to time the best of all others. The print is facing north, to avoid sunlight. We also printed off a new set of labels in a bigger bolder font, for ease of reading whilst standing up.
The first sub-bed had 38 rows, then 40, 43, 39, 34, 19 and 9, totalling 179 rows * 6 cloves per row = 1074 cloves!
It took just over an hour for each sub-bed and in total about 5-6 hours planting over the two days.
One last task is to cover them with straw to protect them from direct sunlight and the freeze/thaw cycles that happen over winter. Once frozen they should stay frozen until spring.
The number of varieties planted this year: To Be Counted yet.
We cut down on the number of types this year, as many of the smaller yields just did not make the cut.
The planting method:
1) we planted two stakes at the beginning and end of the subbed, a measured distance away from the fence to allow for a walking path. A string was tied to give a line to work on.
2) the subbed was raked over to get as flat of a surface as possible.
3) The first dibber went in up against the beginning stake. Each subsequent dibble lined up with the string and used the two extension bars to mark 5″ to 6″ from the last set of holes.
4) Name stakes went in on the opposite side of the string. Each row got its own namestake. As this was going on, Kim would get the next bag, check the name against the stake and start planting about 2-4″ down, or as deep as we could get.
5) Once the subbed was done, the string came off and two more beginning and end stakes were measured and driven in for the next subbed.
Then the straw went on top of the garlic, protecting it against extremes of light and temperature and soil compaction.
The 2023 Garlic Harvest is complete.
Over the course of 4 mornings, Kim dug up, organized, tied and hung up approx 1392 garlic plants.
They dried over the next 3 to 4 weeks, got cleaned, weighed and measured.
This past year we planted 75 types of garlic:
Name # bulbs totalweight(g) averageweight(g)
Armenian(2015) 14 693 50
artichoke formidable 25 571 23
chloe 6 231 39
continental(2021) 7 216 31
crème de la rasa 2019 15 629 42
czech broadleaf 8 141 18
dujanski 7 182 26
F3V 15 406 27
Fishlake Ted F1(2015) 30 823 27
Fishlake Ted F21 20 562 28
Fishlake Ted F23 40 860 22
Fishlake Ted F3 42 2116 50
Fishlake Ted F30 52 2012 39
Fishlake Ted F40 31 846 27
Fishlake Ted F7 24 536 22
french 16 288 18
genki 24 590 25
georgia crystal 7 194 28
georgia fire 7 164 23
Georgian (2018) 16 562 35
german red 17 658 39
german white 18 417 23
Hungarian(2015) 59 3528 60
inchelium 19 722 38
italian lorenz 15 379 25
italian purple (2019 perth) 31 1296 42
italian sicilian (2018) 13 530 41
japanese 8 230 29
japanese sikura 7 116 17
Khabar 4 189 47
kilkarney (2021) 8 194 24
Koji (2019) 15 538 36
Kostyns Red Russian 8 321 40
korean purple 8 156 20
lakota 14 597 43
lucian sicilian 9 927 103
Marino(2016) 26 874 34
mennonite 54 3705 69
Mexican Red Silver 14 209 15
music (2019) 18 697 39
newfoundland (2019) 24 1573 66
northern quebec 16 788 49
nothern siberian 8 174 22
northumberland 8 673 84
omas 8 277 35
polish jenn 15 509 34
port au george (2019) 20 518 26
purple glazer 24 729 30
railway creek (2019) 30 910 30
red rezan 25 399 16
Roja (2019 fa) 24 1819 76
rose de lautrec 15 228 15
Rosewood(2015) 23 1195 52
russian red 25 1127 45
Saltspring Select(2016) 16 597 37
seversky palisek 12 212 18
siberian marble 7 250 36
Sicilian Gold(2016) 17 697 41
silverskin40 26 757 29
slovak 8 265 33
spanish antihelion(2015) 31 865 28
spicy korean 18 915 51
sweet candy(2015) 24 1000 42
transylvanian 15 693 46
ttv5 14 322 23
us polish 8 192 24
us republican 7 186 27
us romanian 7 255 36
vampire 7 193 28
Wettergren(2016) 14 346 25
wild garlic 16 785 49
wyld garlic 14 417 30
yugo red (2018) 15 570 38
zemo 8 177 22
garden 3 unknown
total 1320
min 4 116 15
average 18 669 35
max 59 3705 103
loss of 1392-1320=72 bulbs
This is a little hard to read outside of a spreadsheet.. here are the top ten performers by average weight
Name averageweight(g)
lucian sicilian 103
northumberland 84
Roja (2019 fa) 76
mennonite 69
newfoundland (2019) 66
Hungarian(2015) 60
Rosewood(2015) 52
spicy korean 51
Fishlake Ted F3 50
Armenian(2015) 50
Phew! Kim worked hard and has completed the processing of the 2023 SCGO Garlic Harvest.
This involved cutting the tops and bottoms off, cleaning the dirt off and then measuring each bulb and weighing each type.
We hope to transcribe the data sometime in the next week to get a feel for what worked and what did not work this past year.
This will help us plan for the 2023 fall Garlic planting coming up in October.
I suspect that we will again this coming year, downsize from our largest crop of approx 1500 in the past years to something a lot more reasonable.
We used an 8 hole dibbler to make planting holes for the cloves last year and that was too damaging to the knees to work again, so it was cut own to a 6 hole dibbler, a 25 reduction in bulbs alone!
The 2023 Garlic Harvest is complete. Over the course of 4 mornings, Kim dug up, organized, tied and hung up approx 1392 garlic plants. They will dry over the next 3 to 4 weeks and then come down, get cleaned, weighed and measured. Then they go up for sale 🙂
This past year we planted 75 types of garlic, including:
Armenian(2015)
artichoke formidable
chloe
continental(2021)
crème de la rasa 2019
czech broadleaf
dujanski
F3V
Fishlake Ted F1(2015)
Fishlake Ted F21
Fishlake Ted F23
Fishlake Ted F3
Fishlake Ted F30
Fishlake Ted F40
Fishlake Ted F7
french
genki
georgia crystal
georgia fire
Georgian (2018)
german red
german white
Hungarian(2015)
inchelium
itaian lorenz
italian purple (2019 perth)
italian sicilian (2018)
japanese
japanese sikura
Khabar
kilkarney (2021)
Koji (2019)
Kostyns Red Russian
korean purple
lakota
lucian sicilian
Marino(2016)
mennonite
Mexican Red Silver
music (2019)
newfoundland (2019)
northern quebec
nothern siberian
northumberland
omas
polish jenn
port au george (2019)
purple glazer
railway creek (2019)
red rezan
Roja (2019 fa)
rose de lautrec
Rosewood(2015)
russian red
Saltspring Select(2016)
seversky palisek
siberian marble
Sicilian Gold(2016)
silverskin40
slovak
spanish antihelion(2015)
spicy korean
sweet candy(2015)
transylvanian
ttv5
us polish
us republican
us romanian
vampire
Wettergren(2016)
wild garlic
wyld garlic
yugo red (2018)
zemo
garden 3 unknown
Last year (2022 harvest), the heaviest bulb averages were:
Armenian (54g)
italian purple (2019) (56g)
khabar (52g)
mennonite (50g)
newfoundland (70g)
northern quebec (54g)
roja (99g)
rosewood (51g)
russian red (56g)
The seeds were all dried and put in their packets today. Nine types of tomato seeds were saved out this year.
Anna Russian (mid-large Red), Tiny Tim (red currant) , White Queen (mid White/yellow), Lemon Drop (Yellow cherry) , Scotia (md red-sweet), Roma (Red- plum med), Large Polish (red- Large) , Pineapple (Large bi-coloured), Napoli Paste (Red mid ).
Issues with Tomatoes in general this year, needs more spacing. Need better and higher staking for the large varieties, such as Kelloggs Breakfast, Pineapple, Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Southern Nights.
Tiny Tim, is a small bush size, so no staking required. Lemon Drop, needs staking and a tomato cage to hold the stems. Scotia was prolific this year, and so sweet. Higher staking required, as it was very heavy with fruit. All Paste tomatoes, need lots of staking , as they too get heavy.
Stake the plants early, and monitor every couple of days. There was early blight this year, and though the leaves were taken off, the late blight came after the rains in August, and the plants went quickly. All debris was burned.
And it is DONE! The SCGO Garlic Planting of 2022. It went quicker and easier than past years, thanks to a lot of prep work up front. cracking the bulbs ahead of time, each in its own labelled paper bags with name and number of cloves. All of the signage prepped, counted and sorted. And then the fantastic weather of 20C with a nice breeze.
In past years we have planted at night, with floodlights with rain, sleet and snow coming down. No More!
We planted on Saturday morning Oct 22 and on Sunday afternoon Oct 23.
So, we used the 8 hole Dibbler Mark II, 8 spikes in the dibbler, each 1 3/8″ diameter and 7″ long with 5″ spacing between spikes. Two extending bars measured distance between rows, we used 6″ between rows.
We used two poles to hold onto it whilst jumping on each end and in the middle to get ground penetration.
Unfortunately the dibbler outpaces our human capabilities. We typically move backwards down the bed with feet spread across the 40″ so as to not compact the soil. So of us cannot straddle 40″ anymore 🙂 As well, with 8, larger spikes rather than the Dibbler Mark I, 6 smaller diameter spikes, the absolute PSI driving into the ground is much less. Even jumping up and down on the dibbler into damp soil, it rarely achieve the 7″ depth. We aim for the clove to be 4-5 ” below grade and with the shape of the spike, incomplete depth, this works out for us.
So next year we are planning to move to a narrowed Mark III dibbler, either back to the original 6 hole model or an intermediate 7 hole model. Same force on top with fewer spikes means more PSI per spike, hopefully going deeper than this one did this year.
We planted in VegBed5’s eastern end going from north to south. The signage is laminated laser printed names staples to 1×2″x1′ stakes. This naming system has shown to stand up to time the best of all others. The print is facing north, to avoid sunlight.
The first sub-bed had 38 rows, then 40, 43, 38 and 16, totalling 175 rows * 8 cloves per row = 1400 cloves!
It took just over an hour for each sub-bed and in total about 5-6 hours planting
One last task is to cover them with straw to protect them from direct sunlight and the freeze/thaw cycles that happen over winter. Once frozen they should stay frozen until spring.
The number of varieties planted this year: 18+21+17+18+4=78
We cut down on the number of types this year, as many of the smaller yields just did not make the cut. We expanded the number of planted cloves in those varieties that did particularly well, like Fishlake and Hungarian.
The planting method:
1) we planted stakes at the beginning and end of the subbed, a measured distance away from the fence to allow for a walking path. A string was tied to give a line to work on.
2) the subbed was raked over to get as flat of a surface as possible.
3) The first dibber went in up against the beginning stake. Each subsequent dibble lined up with the string and used the two extension bars to mark 6″ from the last set of holes.
4) Name stakes went in on the opposite side of the string. Each row got its own namestake. As this was going on, Kim would get the next bag, check the name against the stake and start planting about 4-5″ down, or as deep as we could get. Because the 40″ wide row was too wide and we did not want to go around from one side to the other, we would plant two twos and then rake them over to fill in the holes, and then step forward onto the space to plant the next rows, etc. etc.
5) Once the subbed was done, the string came off and two more beginning and end stakes were measured and driven in for the next subbed.
Later today the straw will go on top of the garlic, protecting it against extremes of light and temperature.
The day started out cold -2C but the sun was shining. The wind coming from the SSW at 11 km/h and gusty. I quickly got out to do some Solar Astronomy, then proceeded to get into the gardening mode.
The Bulbils needed to be done, but I decided that they will not be planted in 2022. We have the garlic that will be planted on Oct 22/23 and any types that were too small, went into the styrofoam cup to be planted in the Bulbil bed (Garden 7), I just cannot get rid of them, they want to grow. Most are Mediterranian types that may not like the cold weather we have in Canada. So they are in a raised bed, in a cup, and already covered with straw.
Types that are planted- all small bulbs (broken into the individual cloves):
Chesnock Red 6
Persian Star 5
Phillapino 6
Acropolis Greek 4
Spanish Roja 6
Anglio Rosso 9
Chiliean Silver 7
Carpathian 3
Barcelona Red SP 8
Metchi 3
Tibetan 7
Bubba’s Chsnock 5
So 73 cloves planted.
We have been growning the bulbils out of various varieties for over 10 years, and the main purpose was too see how long it took one small bulbil to produce a bulb. It ranged from 3-5 years, depending on the type. What we had, will be eaten and enjoyed.
This project was started by the wise words of Garlic Guru Paul Pospisil from Beaver Ponds Estates. Paul is no longer with us, but his wisdom carries on.
I also heard crickets, saw dandelions, white phlox, salad burnet, catmint and german chamomile still growing, the flowers do not want to stop either.
Expecting warmer temperatures for the next few days, so its Garlic weekend
The first draft of the results of the 2021-2022 garlic crop at SCGO.
There is still more data that needs to be transcribed but this is the first look.
Approximately 95-3=92 types of garlic and 1464 bulbs of garlic were harvested in July 2022.
We actually planted more but lost a few types over the winter.
The average heaviest bulbs types were:
Armenian (54g)
italian purple (2019) (56g)
khabar (52g)
mennonite (50g)
newfoundland (70g)
northern quebec (54g)
roja (99g)
rosewood (51g)
russian red (56g)
Peak flower in one of the backyard flower beds. This was about 3 weeks back now. There is a nearby bird feeder that the racoons like a lot.. and normally they push right through and over the flowers to get to the birdseed… so far so good this year!
The raised beds tend to dry out a little faster than an inground garden bed. So this year we expanded our tape irrigation system into three of the four beds in this image (we ran out of tape!). This is the before image.. we’ll post an after image shortly.
The system consists of a water feed, mechanical water timer (runs for up to 120 minutes), a one way valve backflow preventer, a filter, a pressure regulator and then into the header hose. Along the way holes are poked and a tape line adapter is inserter, then the tape to it. At the other end, the tape is folded over and sealed.
Typically we walk around and turn on the 4 separate systems (Veg 1,3,4), Veg, Veg4, Veg5 for 120 minutes in the morning and walk away and forget about it.
Tape/drip irrigation is awesome… no evaporative losses like a sprinkler, exact point water along the plant line, not water everywhere and anywhere, a slow enough feed that there is no runoff at all… Recommended!
Our tape lines are approx 8m long each, sometimes we use two lines in a subbed, like the garlic.
After too many years of inadequate cold frames, we have finally found a design that we liked and could build… a 4’x8′ hoop house. This was based on the design of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef_TS19TRQg&list=WL&index=12
The price of materials is much more than what is suggested in the youtube video… x2-x3 more in fact.
So, we will see how this one works out and then decide about building more.
This is made from 1/2″ Schedule 40 PVC, 2×4’s, two hinges, a handle and a bunch of various size screws. Our biggest concern is the extreme wind our area has. We will be adding eyehooks and rope to stop the lid from opening too much and will prop it open with a space short 2″x4″.
We have also found a new supplier for composted sheep manure… this time from a real sheep farm…
https://www.thesheepshelf.ca/
instead of commercial 13kg bags for $5. This stuff looks much more potent!