Garlic Harvest
This years garlic is all in. The last was harvested yesterday, and I finished hanging the plants up to dry today. This was a great year, and I have lots of large and healthy looking bulbs.
As well as regular garlic, this year I grew some bulbils. Some I got from a fellow garlic grower, and some collected from my own plants. It was interesting to see the differences in them, and you can see three different varieties in the picture above. On top the two balls are Estonian Red, the middle a new variety simply called ‘Russian’, and the bottom a variety screaming for a new name called ‘W6 16275′.
You can see the largest plants are about 70-75cm long, about 1/2 that of a full sized plant and formed true but small bulbs with distinct cloves. The other bulbils formed what you see on top, and resemble a single clove garlic bulb you sometimes see in speciality stores.
Some of the bulbils were so small, and the resulting plants no bigger than a blade of grass, that browned and died off very early. These mostly got lost in my garden, and so will stay where they are and I’m sure they will come up next year.
In all, the bulbils were a lot more trouble than the rest of the garlic. I couldn’t put as much straw on them as I did the rest of the garlic because the plants were too small. This meant I had a lot more weeds, and pulling the weeds tended to disturb the plants. I’m expecting to end up with full sized bulbs of garlic within a few years.
According to my notes, I harvested the following varieties of full sized garlic:
Antonnik*
Bai Pi Suan
Bogatyr*
Burgundy
Chilean Silver
Creole Red
Cuban Purple
Dauvaga*
Dominics
Elephant
Estonian Red
Finnish
Gazebo Grande
Georgia Fire
Georgian Crystal
German Porcelain
Germinador
GSF #65
Gypsy Red
Hungarian
Irkutsk*
Kallaves*
Krasnodar Red
Londerdel
Martin’s Heirloom
Maxi Top*
Metechi
Music
New Siberian*
Oosterdel
Oregon Blue
Persian Star
Pskem
Purple Glazer
Purple Haze
Purple Italian*
Pyong Vang
Red Toch
Rosewood
Russian Softneck
Shantung Purple
Siberian*
Silver Rose
Sprint*
Susan Delafield
Sweet Haven
Tuscan
Uzbek Turban
Vekak Czech
Vigor*
Vilnius
Wonha
Xian
Those marked with a * are my first year growing the variety, so I probably don’t have enough to share with others except by special request. As far as the others go, I have some extras I could share if anyone is interested growing it. Just send me an email and we’ll sort out the details.
For most people I would like you to pay for postage and packaging costs. Within the Netherlands this is about €9. Within Europe about €15 and outside of Europe about €25. I accept payment in US Dollars, Euros and UK Pounds, maybe other currencies with prior agreement, For a few of the varieties I have some bulbils available, which could be sent at much lower cost. We can also discuss my only sending a few cloves or only one bulb, that may be at a lower cost.
Shipping is possible to the US as far as I know at the moment, but of course the risk of it not arriving is yours. Honestly there is so much great garlic available in the US, please try to get it locally unless I have a very special variety you would like to have. Shipping within Europe is certainly possible. Other places depend on your local laws.
You can choose the varieties you want from the list above, but what most people do is give me an idea of how many different varieties they would like and I choose the best ones I have available.
If you’re planning to come to the Oxford meeting near the end of October, please get the garlic from me then, I will have several varieties with me and we can arrange any special requests in advance.
It really took a lot of time last year sending out garlic, so this year I will probably limit what I send in several ways. First, I will probably only send out about 10 requests, first come first served. Second, I will not accept any new orders after September 1st. Third, for most people there is a limit of 5 varieties, but if you have special needs let me know.
If you get garlic from me, it would be very much appreciated if you grow it and share with others, especially if you have a blog and could offer it there. It would save me a lot of trouble if other people helped send it to others. If you have some to offer now, but don’t have a blog, please let me know and I’ll mention it here.
Garlic Rust Appears
I didn’t have my camera, but I noticed rust on my garlic plants yesterday.
Most years the rust tends to appear in one place, then spreads out from there. This year all my plants seem to have become infected at the same time.
It’s really hard to say if the milk I used made any difference.
Since I would normally begin harvesting in a week or two anyway, the rust is no real problem this year.
Food Independence for Independence Day
Roger of KGI recently made a post on a campaign he started to encourage people to celebrate the upcoming Independence day in the US by featuring local foods. As well as promoting the idea of eating locally, he also addresses the idea of food independence, or food sovereignty as it’s known outside of the US. It’s a really important concept, and it’s important for everyone living everywhere on the planet.
It’s the idea you are able to grow your own food without inputs or outputs of any kind, and without depending on anyone else for anything. Without needing to get into your SUV and drive to Walmart to buy lumber, large bales of peat, mulch, sacks of fertilizers and so on. Without needing to buy seeds from a single source because you grow hybrid varieties produced by a single company. Without needing to use tap water, because you collect rainwater from your roof. Without needing to use landfill space, because you recycle all of your own garden waste. Without using power tools that run on fossil fuels, pollute the air and generate greenhouse gasses. Without needing money to pay for it all.
Of course few people manage to achieve all of these things simultaneously, but by thinking about these things, doing the best you can given your personal circumstances and continuing to work on and improve the way you garden, you are taking an important first step.
A useful way to think about this is the way you spend money on your garden. Growing fruits and vegetables should be almost free. You will need some hand tools, if your ground is acidic some lime and maybe some potting soil from time to time, but everything else comes down to recycling things from your own garden and growing methods. In the short term other things may be needed, for example you may decide to purchase a greenhouse and a shed. You may have some specific problems in your garden that need to be addressed, one of the most common is soil lacking something that can be identified with a soil test or other methods. You may have drainage problems that need to be fixed, and so on. There aren’t many problems that require treatments or inputs beyond a year or two, and you should be thinking about garden sovereignty after that time.
When you buy food from the supermarket, you immediately find yourself in the middle of a complex tangle of commercial interests and politics. It begins because few people know how to grow their own food today, and in part it’s because food companies have invested tremendous effort into making modern foods convenient and cheap. It’s a vicious cycle that’s hard to break. Growing your own food is something that takes time to learn, and this lack of knowledge is really a serious problem.
Nearly all varieties of fruits and vegetables are patented and produced by one of five seed and chemical companies worldwide. Since these same companies also sell chemicals, and they make more money if they sell chemicals with their seeds, so they breed them specifically to need these chemicals. We are all familiar with GM Round Up ready varieties, and this is one very obvious example as Monsanto sells both Round Up and the Round Up ready varieties of seed. There are many, many much more insidious examples of this for example cucumbers susceptible to mildew diseases or insect pests that require chemicals.
When farmers buy commercial seeds to plant, they get a list of required chemicals and a schedule for applying them. Agriculture by numbers, if you like. If farmers don’t do this the seed companies won’t support them. It’s like doing something that invalidates a consumer warranty, even if it has nothing to do with some unrelated problem that needs to be fixed. Under these circumstances, you can be assured farmers will apply all the required chemicals even if they know they aren’t needed.
If you buy certified organic food, you are still buying these commercial varieties. In this case, you pay for the patents on the varieties and the work that went into them being designed to need chemicals, the extra trouble the farmer has to go through to grow them without chemicals, finally the very cumbersome associated paperwork and regulations intended to put small farmers and food producers at a disadvantage. It’s a silly way to buy your food.
If you buy meat, this tangle gets even more intense, because first the grains are grown like I described above, then the animals are raised following similar lines of logic.
This is what we call the Green Revolution.
It came about because during the depression of the 30s and the war years that followed, there were food shortages and they need to ensure food companies who invested in improved plant varieties and production methods could be assured of profits. They invested in plant varieties, chemicals and methods that made them as much money as possible and there were no other reasons for what they did. There’s no reason to believe, if they hadn’t instead invested in organic agriculture without chemical and energy inputs, productions yields would be any lower today than they are now.
When politicians talk about providing ‘high quality’ seeds to the developing world to fight hunger, they are lying. It’s as simple as that. Instead what they are talking about is forcing a system of debt, dependence and environmental damage on hungry people who are in desperate need of developing their own food sovereignty.
If you go to a garden center and buy a normal commercial packet of seeds, you immediately put yourself in the middle of this tangle of required chemicals and politics. It’s not that it’s impossible to grow nice things from commercial seed packets, but you’re starting off at a disadvantage.
If you think along the lines of food sovereignty, and avoid commercial seeds, you’re assured chemicals will not be needed to grow your plants. Otherwise the situation is less clear.
In order to be sure to avoid the usual commercial tangle, if you want to purchase non-commercial seeds, you should purchase them from a company that specialized in them. The best thing would be if you can find a local company, that hopefully produces seeds most suitable for your local climate. In any case, be sure to look specifically for a company that specializes in non-commercial seeds. The links page on this blog lists a number of these companies.
If you grow non-commercial seeds, another advantage is being able to save and replant seeds from these plants. Saving seeds is also a skill that’s been lost with our current generation and takes some time to learn. Many people start reading about how complicated it is and are quickly discouraged. It really doesn’t have to be difficult. Roger’s post that I linked to at the top, discusses growing garlic, something that doesn’t take any special skills to save and replant. Beans, peas and lettuce are nearly as easy. Just grow the plants and save the seeds — that’s it. Other plants can be more complicated but a little research is all that’s needed to learn how to do it. You must however start with non-commercial seeds, or the plants you get after saving your seeds will not be the same as the original parent plants.
Once you make the decision to start saving your seeds, you have access to the wonderful world of seed exchanges. These are fellow gardeners who also save their own seeds, and often have very special varieties of plants on offer. While some of these gardeners are happy to provide their seeds to anyone and everyone, most really expect you to have the intention of saving and regrowing them, so it’s best to at least have the intention of doing this before getting involved in trading this way. If you’re interested in offering or receiving non-commercial seeds, have a look at the Bloggers Seed Netork page.
Aim for food sovereignty. Don’t add anything unnecessarily to your garden. Get away from the mindset of being a farmer, and needing a box of this and a bottle of that. Don’t give your money to the wrong companies. Grow the right varieties. Take care of our planet and your health, at the same time you grow fresh fruits and vegetables in your own garden.
Milk and Rust
Garlic rust is very much on my mind at the moment. Last year around this time it appeared on my garlic, and it just appeared on Gintoino’s garlic in Portugal.
Søren had a good suggestion last year, spraying his garlic with diluted milk, and I’ve decided to try it this year. I’m mixing it about 1:5 with water, only because it’s most convenient to buy milk by the liter here and that’s what works well to fill my spray bottle and cover the plants. I understand nonfat milk is the best to use, but this is a special purchase here and hard to find reasonably priced, so I’m using lowfat instead. I’ve been doing this once a week for the last two weeks, and will keep doing it about this often or after it rains, until it seems pointless to continue.
There isn’t a practical way for me to do anything close to a scientific study here, with a control section of my garden, because once I have garlic rust anywhere it will spread quickly.
What I understand is garlic rust occurs at a time of high humidity, but not when the plants are wet. In my own experience, I see it break out in my garden most often when the days are warm, the nights cool and the humidity is high. Because it seems to be so tied to weather conditions, it doesn’t seem like comparing the date I got it last year with the date I get it this year is a good comparison.
Anyway, to help me figure out if the milk is helping, I would appreciate if anyone reading this who has garlic in their garden will tell me if and when they get rust this year.
Rust is primarily a European plant disease, so those of you in North America probably won’t see it.
Rust is not usually a deadly disease for garlic, but it does reduce the harvest and causes the plants to die prematurely. Delaying the appearence is what’s really important, because an infection two weeks earlier or later can mean the difference between a more or less normal harvest or one that has to be made early.
Garlic Duck
If you came here expecting a recipe, you’ve come to the wrong place.
Do you see it there in the middle?
Here’s a closer look…
Here’s the whole thing.
It the past I’ve had hedgehogs, birds nests, wasps even ants, but I’ve never before had a duck’s nest in my garden. Snuggled comfortably between the Red Toch and the Russian Softneck, with it’s home in the straw. Three eggs are waiting with the next generation inside.
I discovered her a few days ago, after being in the garden for a few hours. Completely unaware of her, I got a little too close causing her to fly away in a panic. I don’t know who was more frightened, her or me as a duck suddenly took off almost vertically from my garden about a meter from where I was standing.
I have not seen any slugs or snails this year! It could just be luck, but I think I’ve already encountered the first benefit of having a resident garden duck. I’ve seen other garden bloggers joke about a slug or snail problem really only being a matter of a duck deficiency. Well I can assure you, I have no such problem!
According to what I’ve read on the Internet, duck eggs take about a month to hatch, so for the next several weeks she and I will both have to share the garden space. Fortunately she picked a part of the garden I don’t need to go into often these days.
