Tag: garlic

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Kitchen Garden

The Moon is Still Out

Trail walking on Sept. 9, 2025. The moon is still out.

Walking on the state park trail before dawn is the latest iteration of my use of the trail. When I go out early I am hoping to catch some glorious photographs of a colorful sky. Recent days have been rather quotidian. At least the moon is still out at that hour. Yesterday I settled for wildflowers.

Wildflowers on the state park trail on Sept. 10, 2025.

Our 55th high school class reunion is later this month and among other things, I agreed to bring a dessert. The planning group had a lengthy conversation about sheet cakes last year. The consensus was that a sheet cake would not be eaten. I have to bring 24 of something that can be held in hand. Thinking of a small cookie as someone else is bringing bars. Also considering something without sugar to be more diabetic friendly for my cohort of septuagenarians. The research sources will be my red, hand-written cookbook and four church cookbooks from the parish where I attended grade school. Nothing against the fancy pastry cookbooks sitting on my shelves. It is a reunion and a tribal recipe might go over. The first recipe to which I turned was for sugar cookies. I have nine bushels of apples picked and ready for the kitchen, so maybe something with those. There is time.

While I type, the last batch of tomato sauce is being water-bath canned. With what is leftover from previous years in whole tomatoes, the 24 pints I made should serve until next year. It is hard to believe how quickly tomato season is ending. I’ll make one last pass through the rows and that is likely it.

I decided to make eight quarts of applesauce (to make a case of the four leftover from 2023) and to finish one case of pints plus one more case. Total of 36 pints plus 12 quarts to last two years until the next Red Delicious harvest. It should be plenty. After that, I get out the juicer and make juice for cider vinegar. The quantity is never exact, and I just returned from counting six mostly empty half-gallon jars. I leave a little vinegar with the mother in each of the jars for a starter. I have five bushels of cider apples, plus more on the tree, so there will be plenty.

The food part of summer is winding to a close. I need to trim the garlic and put it into storage. I want to get the garlic for next year’s crop in the ground in early October. Once that is done, gardening season will be over for the year.

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Kitchen Garden

Final 2025 Garlic Report

2025 Garlic just in from the field.

This year, I produced 103 head of garlic from 103 cloves planted in March. Without doubt, a person can plant garlic in the spring and get a decent crop. I plan to return to fall planting later this year.

There were four or five wet stalks that pulled off, yet the rest of it looked as it should. If anything, there were more smaller heads. That is likely due to the shortened growing season. There are plenty of large heads to seed next year’s crop.

I racked them up in no time.

2025 garlic racked and in the garage.

Because of the moisture from recent rain, I set up a small fan to circulate air around them while they dry. Once they feel less “wet” I will put away the fan and let them cure without it. It usually takes about three weeks.

Small fan to circulate air between the racked garlic plants.

Growing my own garlic has been life-changing. There is no going back.

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Kitchen Garden

Garlic Harvest and Garden Stuff

Garlic harvest in 2021.

I spent part of Monday prepping the garage to receive two racks of freshly picked garlic plants for curing. In 2024, the harvest was July 12, so with spring planting this year, I’m running a month behind. The garlic plants look a bit weird — multiple flowers per head, small scapes — so I don’t know what I will get. Hopefully there will be enough good cloves to replant in the fall, with the rest to be used in the kitchen regardless of size. I have a dozen head of garlic left from 2024. Later this week I will grind them in the blender with some olive oil to store in the refrigerator until I use them up. My cooking life was forever changed when Susan Jutz taught me to grow garlic.

I made a batch of applesauce with Earliblaze apples and it was not as good as the batch made with Zestar! apples. If I get ambitious, I might cut down one or both of the Earliblaze trees and replace it with another Zestar! tree. I don’t see that happening this fall.

There does not look to be an abundance of tomatoes for canning. With 70 cages, there are plenty to eat fresh and cook with. Just last week I made a batch of chili using San Marzano tomatoes and it was distinctively better. This shows cooking with fresh tomatoes makes a big difference in taste. The tomato harvest is beginning to accelerate so we’ll see where it takes us.

Squash and cucumbers are pretty well done. A few green beans remain to be picked. Leafy green vegetables are aplenty, although the refrigerator and freezer are stocked with enough to last until next season. Hot peppers have just begun to come in. There will be some more eggplant and bell peppers. That is about it.

This is a snapshot of where things are in the garden. It has been a great year.

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Kitchen Garden

A Challenging Garlic Crop

First 2025 garlic.

I had COVID-19 in August and September 2024, so I did not get garlic planted before winter. Once recovered from the virus, I checked soil conditions each day into December and did not find them right for planting. One thing led to another, winter came and went, and I planted garlic on March 29. My friend Susan told me long ago garlic could be planted in the spring. Ever since I began growing it in my home garden I over wintered.

I began to freak out when the plants did not seem as tall as in previous years. On July 9, I ordered one pound of garlic seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, the first time I ever did that. If my crop was a bust, I wanted something to start over. It was an expensive insurance policy.

When scapes emerged, they seemed of mixed quality. A few looked normal, yet some sprouted multiple scapes, and some were puny. They tasted fine, it’s just the overall volume for 100 plants seems lighter than in previous years.

By August, my garlic is usually harvested, racked, and curing in the garage on the special rack I made. I want the first couple of leaves to start turning brown before harvest, and we just aren’t there. Some are starting to turn, so harvest can’t be long. I dug one head (see photo) and it looked good. Maybe I’ll be alright.

It never occurred to me what life would be like without garlic. It wouldn’t feel like a real life. Fingers crossed I make it through a decent harvest and fall panting in October.

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Kitchen Garden

Last Year Meets This Year

Home made garlic basil spread.

The first harvest of basil was huge this year. I used part of it to make this pesto-like spread for toast and with pasta. A purist would say it is wanting in pine nuts and Parmesan cheese and therefore not pesto. In my world, there are not a lot of purists. These two jars went in the freezer while I use up previous year’s jars of pesto for lack of a better name.

Fresh basil pairs nicely with last year’s garlic crop, which needs to be used up before garlic scapes appear this year. Garlic, basil, extra virgin olive oil, and a little salt is all this needs. This batch used two and a half large head of garlic, and four cups of chopped basil. The measurements are flexible.

I made a batch of vegetable broth and this pesto while the ambient temperature outdoors was in the low 90s. It was a fine Saturday afternoon to work in the kitchen.

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Kitchen Garden

2025 Garden is In

War Gardens

It was 90 degrees Fahrenheit when I finished putting in hot peppers yesterday. With that, the main garden planting is finished. Ahead is maintenance, weeding, and replanting: normal stuff, part of what makes gardening enjoyable.

The next major event is expected to be the appearance of garlic scapes. In the meanwhile, the leafy green vegetable plot has been producing an abundance. I enjoy my afternoon trips to the garden to pick greens for the kitchen.

The portable greenhouse will come down soon. The only things left are a tray of seedlings for the covered row (lettuce, Pak Choi, arugula, herbs), a tray of Milkweed starts, and an experiment in using old onions and leek seeds. It is best to take it down to reduce exposure to high winds in the neighborhood.

I have multiple days of tree maintenance next. The chainsaw service center is relocating due to the City of North Liberty wanting their land. My chainsaw was the next mechanical device to go into the shop, although I am not driving 45 minutes four times to take it there. I may see if Stihl has a reliable electric chainsaw. The home, farm , and auto supply store where I used to work is a Stihl dealer, and remains in the orbit of retailers I visit in person.

Low humidity makes the high temperatures tolerable. From here on out, I expect to spend early morning daylight in the garden and then move to other work. For those who have been following along, I expect to start a daily writing regimen when summer begins next week.

It feels good to have the garden in.

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Kitchen Garden

Spring Abundance

Plot #3 with seeds planted in the margins between sheets of ground cover.

Rain relented long enough to start planting. May 15 is the normal last frost, and it is Katy bar the door as far as getting things in the ground goes. Plot #1 was garlic planted last year with a strip for a covered row. Plot #2 was potatoes and onions. Plot #3 is radishes, green beans, turnips, Sugar Snap Peas and Snow Peas, along with whatever else I decide to put there from the greenhouse. If the weather holds, I should make fast work of the rest of planting.

This year I’m harvesting more than I can use from what over wintered. Collards, kale, spring garlic, green onions, and cilantro are abundant. Salad greens came from this year’s planting in trays. I haven’t been able to get them in the ground, so I just picked and washed them. Having so much early produce changes the dynamic of a kitchen garden.

For one thing, the season is extended. I enjoy fresh cilantro in my breakfast tacos and I’ve had it for more than a month. Fresh leafy green vegetables are always better than frozen, and we use them in everything. I’ve been using last year’s crop from the freezer to make vegetable broth and plenty remains. Having fresh from the garden vegetables in March and April is a definite treat resulting from just leaving the garden alone last fall.

In Plot #3 I laid down plastic ground cover and planted seeds around the edges. This technique enables me to get a bigger, more diverse crop out of the plot, in addition to easier spacing of crops. Last year this plot was in cruciferous vegetables and I’d like to rotate out of that. Once I inventory the greenhouse, I’ll know to what extent that is possible. For sure, I will place tomatillos, celery, and other types of seedlings. I’ll likely be left with a single row of kale, collards and chard just to fill out the plot. Wherever I plant broccoli and cauliflower in plot #4, I’ll plant more leafy greens. I like to keep cruciferous vegetables in as few spots as possible so I can monitor the little white butterflies and their progeny who like living with them.

Wednesday I got some things done while working up a sweat. My sense of where we are is that it will be a great growing year with healthy plants and an abundance for the kitchen. It’s why we garden.

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Kitchen Garden

Turning the Soil

Turning soil with a spade on Oct. 10, 2023.

After turning soil in the new garlic plot the next steps are breaking up the heads of seed garlic to pick the best 100 cloves, spreading composted chicken manure over the plot, and running the rototiller until the soil is thoroughly mixed. This year the soil is a bit diverse with composted wood chips, compost from the large garden waste composter, and a variety of soil types from planting a diverse mix of vegetables here. Gardening is always an experiment. We’ll see how garlic in this mixed plot goes.

Garlic marks the last planting of the year. From here, garden work consists of taking down all the fencing and caging and stacking it for next year. I don’t always finish that work, leaving some of it for spring.

My posts about garlic are among the most popular on this blog.

Seed garlic 2023.

Last night, two of my political friends Laura Bergus and Pauline Taylor won their primary to advance to the City Council ballot in November. Here in Big Grove, the November election is not significant. As I covered previously, there are two incumbents running for two school board seats and that’s it. Our household plans to vote.

U.S. Senator Joni Ernst and U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks were both on a trip to the Middle East when Hamas attacked Israel. Miller-Meeks returned early for the House Speaker election today, and Senator Ernst met with Prime Minister Netanyahu on Tuesday. Ernst is co-chair of the Abraham Accords Caucus and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. While she was there, Israel had begun bombing Gaza. The situation in the Middle East is complicated. The Hamas attack on Israel is not and the United States stepped up to help.

I am working my way off Twitter. I uninstalled the application from my mobile device and read it only on my desktop. There continue to be too many newsworthy accounts and too many valued friends and acquaintances there to give it up completely. Eventually, though, I will. Not having the application on my mobile lets me know how much I relied on it. That needs changing.

Rain is forecast around noon today. I hope to have garlic planted before it comes. It has been unseasonably warm, so if I miss the window, there will be another.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Apple Cider Vinegar Day

Ten half-gallon jars of apple cider vinegar fermenting.

There was an opportunity to fill the apple cider vinegar containers so I took it. With an abundant apple harvest there are plenty to juice and turn into vinegar. I’ve written about vinegar-making multiple times in the last ten years. All I have to add is this is one of the best apple seasons since I planted the first trees in 1994.

The apple juice produced by these Red Delicious apples is quite good, even better once the impurities are filtered out. I have a couple of five gallon buckets of juice apples ready to convert and store in large glass jars. It tastes better than anything I buy at the store. Key to good taste is drinking it fresh rather than canning it.

Vinegar-making is the end of the garden harvest season. I’ll glean the garden a couple more times and pick more apples should I need them. The main work is done.

Last year I planted garlic on Oct. 15 and expect about the same this year. A neighbor with a pickup truck already took me to a local farm where I bought four straw bales for mulching. They are resting in the garage and ready to go once the cloves are in the ground.

This is a punk autumn because everyone but me is away and sick. On Monday I went to a pharmacy that had the just-released COVID vaccine and got inoculation number seven. I am determined to avoid getting COVID. This means avoiding most human contact of a duration over ten minutes. With our child living on their own and my spouse at her sister’s home for an extended stay, the chance of contracting the virus at home from one of them is close to nil. I restrict movement as best I can and wear a KN-95 mask when with groups of people. For good measure, I also got the seasonal influenza vaccination last week.

With vinegar fermenting on the shelf, I am at the point of apple season where I need a big project to use the harvest before it goes bad. In the meanwhile, if I want a snack, it will contain apples. Breakfast? Apples. Lunch? Apples. Supper? Baked apple dessert. We look forward to this time of year so I plan to enjoy it.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Garlic Harvest 2023

2023 Garlic Harvest. 70 head plus seven green garlic.

It took about two and a half hours to harvest, sort and rack the garlic. 70 good sized head plus seven green garlic where I filled in spots where the clove planted in October didn’t survive winter. There is plenty for cooking in the coming year and 100 cloves to plant in the fall. This is what a home gardener hopes for in a garlic crop.

Lining up the garlic heads on a two-by-four for drying.

The main learning lessons are these:

  • Use wheat straw to mulch over winter. Grass clippings created a too-dense matte that hindered spring growth.
  • If there are empty spots in the spring, do plant new cloves in them. They don’t grow to maturity with the rest of the garlic, yet if you harvest the entire plot at once, they make green garlic to use in the kitchen while waiting for the main crop to cure.
  • Inspect each head to make sure it is disease-free. As long as the heads are disease-free, they can be used to start the following year’s crop.
  • Set aside the largest heads to use as seeds. Don’t equivocate on this step.
Racked garlic crop of 2023.

Garlic is such a basic ingredient that if one gardens at all, some part of the garden must be devoted to it. In the years I have been growing my own, I never found garlic at the grocer that is anywhere near as good in quality as my own. Producing a good garlic crop is one of the reasons we garden.