The Great Garlic Harvest of 2020 is here! But first, several other scrumptious garden delights. Enjoy!
If you've been following my garden posts, you'll have seen my peas go from seeds to full-grown plants along my shed, and they just finished up today.
Instead of crouching in the hot sun to pick the pods off the plants, I cut them all off at ground level and took them into the shade, where I could sit and do the work at my leisure.
Once I got the pods off, I pulled out the last of the tender young peas to make babysuperfood, and set aside about a dozen pods of full-sized peas to dry into seed for next year's crop.
They're sweet, and packed with flavour, protein, and vitamins. I will be doing more peas next spring if I'm still at this place (and hopefully even if I'm not).
The Great Garlic Harvest 2020
It's here. The day you (well, mostly I) have long awaited. The day my 40 garlic plants are pulled up, revealing the fruits of my labour (mostly waiting, to be honest) since I planted them in October. It has been an adventure! (Some got taken out in later winter by clueless city workers digging in my yard looking for the property line pin. Idiota!)
The weather has turned truly hot here in South-central British Columbia (the Okanagan). That's traditionally when garlic is harvested, because it doesn't grow in the heat anyway. Now it can be allowed to dry, and either consumed, or planted again in October.
Boom, that's what a garlic harvest looks like. Dig, pull, stack, and repeat. Actually, I left a few in the ground to see how they look after a full extra year of development.
I've grown garlic for years. It's great for the garden, the immune system, and the taste buds.
That's what one looks like after knocking the soil off.
A bunch to be set aside for drying and eating.
Some to set aside for replanting before first frost.
25 bulbs drying in a cool, dry, dark place.
We have a couple bulbs sitting on the windowsill, and they smell excellent!
Other food
But man cannot live on garlic alone. There's some other food growing around here, too!
The tomato plants are bushy and wild, and forming dozens of little tomatoes.
My 2 rows of yellow wax bush beans. My dad always grew wax bush beans and supplied my mom's kitchen with them. I was bored of them at the time but looking back I see that as something they did right. Fresh, truly-organic vegetables grown out of dirt, the way nature intended for us and the way we've been doing it for thousands of generations.
Each plant has several flowers and several beans at the moment.
I brought in a small handful and we enjoyed them steamed. A few went into the blender combined with some peas for baby's first taste of beans. He approved, bigtime.
The 2 cucumber plants are doing well, sprawling in a few directions each.
The larger of the 2 plants has already produced this cuke (photo taken yesterday).
I twisted it off today. There are others on the go, letting this one go another couple days wasn't strategically sound. I think I made the right call.
And it was delicious! I wished Grama was alive to taste it. She always had me grow a couple cucumber plants for her, each year, in the front rose garden. (I don't know why there... tradition, I think.)
Baby got a few soft pieces to chew up and swallow. It went well. He loves pretty much everything we give him! After almost 10 months, everything he has eaten so far has been made solely of plants - other than breastmilk from his mother! He's a great eater, and incredibly strong, happy, healthy, and smart. I'm so happy to be able to provide him with real food, directly from the garden behind our house, that I know is good for him.
Squash! It's making a bee-line for, well, I don't know where. It's just shooting off across the lawn.
Plenty of female flowers, like that one. And of course, several males as well:
But so far, all I've been getting are duds, like these ones:
And yes, I've been hand-pollinating them, as well as allowing bees and wind to work their magic. Now I think I might have a real squash forming, but we'll see what happens...
I have another healthy tomato plant in a makeshift garden in front of the workshop.
And several potato plants there as well.
The basil is bushing out nicely after being topped recently. Something has been eating at it... including @MediKatie and I!
The purslane just keeps doing its thing. Great edible ground cover! It's starting to flower now (the tiny yellow specks).
Dessert
Some people like a hot rhubarb pie or crumble, and I've certainly got the rhubarb to make it happen.
But I prefer a handful of sweet raspberries, fresh off the bush at the side of the house. It's peak production for raspberries right now, so eat as many as you can! Any we don't eat just go to waste, and encourage the plant to finish up for the year. So: EAT!
Now THAT is fast food. Delicious, instant, and as a bonus, loaded with nutrition. Far better for you than anything you'll get from a factory, and free if you have some dirt, know-how, and time.
Mid summer is here, and the harvests will keep coming around here! Stay tuned as I grow as much high-quality food for my family as I can, here at my little rental house, during this year of economic and political turmoil. Health and Liberty to all.
Grow in peace,
DRutter
