All the Dirt on Gardening

Worldwide, 2.5 million acres of garlic are grown to meet the needs of our kitchens and natural health pharmacies. Most of that garlic is grown in Asia, specifically China. CA has the largest growing area in the U.S. It is one of the easiest fall-planted crops you can grow in a kitchen garden. Garlic can be planted from the seeds of the flower but only under special conditions so most of us just use cloves of garlic as seed. When you buy a head of garlic at the produce stand or farmer’s market, you break it apart into cloves. Each of those cloves has the potential to produce a head of garlic. Garlic planted now will be harvested next June. You must get going on ordering seed. Most companies run out of stock on varieties. You can tuck seed (cloves) into any sunny flower or vegetable bed or in a deep container where it will mature over the winter and next spring. We usually plant ours between now and Christmas. Select seed from recommended garlic varieties to ensur...

Cool fall temperatures and rain have created an ideal time to divide cold-hardy bulbs, plant garlic, and take care of a few other enjoyable tasks outside. our Bluebells April 2014 For most gardeners, the word bulb includes bulbs, corms, tubers and rhizomes. Spring flowers such as iris, lily, crocus, amaryllis, scilla (bluebells, etc.), daffodils and narcissus, all benefit from being dug up, divided, and replanted every 3 to 5 years. You may have noticed that established clumps of bulbs have green shoots in the spring but flower only around the outer edge of the planting or produce no flowers at all. Rather than letting them die out from lack of attention, grab a shovel and dig the clumps by inserting a shovel around the circumference of the planting. Then, carefully insert the shovel beneath the clump and lift the bulbs out. Daffodil clumps can be two or three layers deep; iris rhizomes and roots are shallow. Place the entire clump of bulbs or corms onto a fla...

The garlic planted last October was harvested over the past couple of weeks and it's now hung in the garden shed to dry. Much of what we planted came from our own seed which is simply cloves of garlic that we harvested a year ago. We decided that any variety that lasted from one harvest to the next planting deserved to get another run. In addition, we purchased some garlic heads from a mail order source that we have found to be reliable. The winter was wetter than it has been for a few years and the spring was cooler so it took a week or two longer for the garlic to mature into cloves.. The first time I planted garlic was after a how-to workshop with Tulsa's garlic man, Darrell Merrill. When I tried to harvest that first planting, I went into a panic because the head looked like an onion not garlic with cloves. Darrell was very patient with me and explained that it just needed to stay in the ground another couple of weeks. If you haven't discovered how easy it i...

Garlic, onions and shallots are planted in late-fall here. Sometimes as late as New Year's Day with pretty good results, depending on how early the first freeze arrives. Shallots with onion If yours isn't in the ground yet, there is still time. Our garlic seeds are in but the onions still remain. We are in zone 7 so short season varieties are the best choices for us. It's based on sunlight hours: short day, 10 to 12 hours; intermediate day, 12 to 14 hours; and long day, 14 to 16 hours. Dixondale Farms catalog just arrived yesterday in the same mail as the shallot seeds from a new vendor I'm trying. Dixondale has a good, online reference for planting at http://cdn.dixondalefarms.com/downloads/OnionPlantingGuide.pdf Park Seed Shallots can be confusing: You can purchase small shallots now and plant them over the winter to harvest in the spring. Or, you can plant seeds now that will become those small shallots. If you plant the seeds in the ground they will...

Photo: Monkshood blooming in the shade garden today More of the potted plants went into the ground today including a glorious red Penstemmon . All the plants at Lowe's were half price today. We added a couple of shrubs for the outside wall of the new shed and bought one new S alvia . Photo: Here's the garlic bed The rototiller provided the raised rows. Photo: The Dogwoods' leaves are turning red in the shade garden. Enjoy these wonderful fall days in your garden.