All the Dirt on Gardening

Garlic Scapes Garlic scapes are the flower stalks and flower buds of hardneck garlic, leeks and onions. If they are not trimmed off before they flower two things happen:  1) the plants' energy goes to producing flowers, inhibiting the growth size of the garlic heads underground; and, 2) the pollinators enjoy the pollen of the garlic flowers and tiny garlic plants come up everywhere in your flower beds the next year. How do I know? because more than half of the scapes in the red colander are from our flower beds. The scapes must be picked young if you want to use them. If not harvested now, they dry up and become tough/stringy and horrible to use in pesto. Definitely harvest them before they form flowers. This year we also grew leeks and they are now forming scapes, too. They will get used in the same recipe. But there are lots of other recipes   Garlic Scape Carbonara  – Sarah’s Cucina Bella Garlic Scape Pesto  – Dorie Greenspan White Bean...

Leek seedlings Lancelot Leeks are those beautiful, mild-onion-like vegetables that are easy to grow in our zone 7. And, they don't require the deep, fertile soil that beets and other root vegetables need. We live on a rocky hill and have had zero success with beets, turnips and other roots but leeks work just fine. In years passed I've allowed one or two to go to seed and kept the same crop going for four or five years before the seed failed to return. This year I've ordered one bunch of starts (30 seedlings $14) from Dixondale Farms . They won't be delivered until mid-February 2018 - at planting time. I ordered now because by then they will be hard to find. Planting Leek Seedlings Like all vegetables, Leeks need lots of organic matter in the soil. Since I'm emptying one of the compost bins right now, I'm putting buckets of compost into the bed where they'll be planted. At planting time, an 8-inch deep trench is made and the leeks are planted ...