This year’s garlic

IMG_2849This year, the garlic is slow to mature and be harvested. Usually I’m harvesting my garlic around the 4th of July but this year it’s not ripe yet for harvest and curing. Perhaps it’s the long, cool spring we’ve had. Perhaps it’s all the rain since garlic likes the soil moist but not wet. Or some combination.

How do I know the garlic isn’t ready to harvest yet? I look for the first five leaves on the stem to turn yellow. As you can see from the picture above, the leaves are all still green on the 4th of July. It may be August before the garlic is perfect and ready for harvest.

 

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What’s up and coming

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Cucumbers are flowering and growing wildly up the trellis. Soon there will be many varieties of cucumbers to relish.

 

 

 

 

 

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Bush beans (here) and pole beans are flowering. Soon there will be many fillet beans to eat cooked and raw. To keep your beans producing all season, keep picking all the beans off the plant. That keeps it flowering and producing beans all season.

 

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Eggplants are flowering and forming small fruits. Can’t hardly wait until I’m harvesting gorgeous eggplants and roasting them for dinner.

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Summer fruits, part four: more berries

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Black raspberries

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Blackberry flowers and immature fruit

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More summer fruits: sour cherries

IMG_2811A friend invited me to harvest from her sour cherry tree. It was beautiful and laden with cherries. I’ve enough now pitted for a half dozen pies. Yum.

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Lettuce-free salads

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Summer salad with garden ingredients, including strawberries

Now that the spinach, lettuces and microgreens have bolted (flowered) and lost their taste, it’s still easy to make a great salad. I love salads made with herb and young vegetable leaves. Plus there are hot weather greens that make refreshing salads in summer heat.

Herb leaves are wonderful in salads: mint, thyme, tarragon, basil, dill.

Small beet greens, sorrel, baby chard and little kale all add color, nutrition and great flavors to a summer salad. These leaf salads can be chopped or torn.

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Chrysanthemum greens

Thanks to a kitchen garden client, I’ve started growing hot weather greens. Shungiku or chrysanthemum greens are a favorite and originate in East Asia. The leaves are delicious and highly nutritious. The plant is in the aster family and produces a small yellow flower which my client taught me to clip off so it never bolts. Excellent flavor and crispness.

As I’ve written about before, I also grow red malabar spinach. Not spinach at all, it is an Malaysian vine with ruby red stems and emerald green leaves. More to follow on malabar spinach.

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Nasturtium leaves and flowers

Nasturtiums add color in the garden and perk up salads. The flowers and the leaves can be eaten and add a peppery flavor to the other greens.

 

 

Wild arugula

Wild arugula

Finally, there’s arugula! I grow several varieties each with a distinct series of flavors. This year, I’m growing a French arugula as well as the wild one that pops up all over my garden. Once you dress arugula, it is not so spicy and is a splendid addition to a summer salad, harmonizing nicely with the other greens. Arugula combines nicely with strawberries and with balsamic vinegar dressings.

What do you like in your summer salad?

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First blackberries . . .

Ate the first ripe raspberries today. They were the golden variety and so sweet.

Below are red raspberries ready soon for summer feasting.

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Insects in the garden

I was asked a good question the other day about insects. Do I spray?

Actually, no, I don’t spray because I have an organic garden and I don’t want to kill beneficial insects when spraying the destructive ones. That said, I have used a vinegar spray, Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap diluted and other home remedies to manage destructive insects in the garden with modest results.

The truth is I usually don’t bother. I’ve lost an entire green bean crop to Japanese beetles in three days. I battle earwigs in my lettuces and chard with the ferocity of a native Californian (because I am). Green cabbage worms in the lettuce are annoying. Fortunately, I’ve not been hit with squash beetles and have kept my eggplants free of black fleas. (And then there are the rabbits. . . . )

Such is life. Every year, there is something that does spectacularly well and something that proves a poor crop. Sometimes it’s an early fall and sometimes it’s an invasion of destructive insects.

There are, however, plenty of beneficial insects in the garden. Copious earthworms and spiders (not actually insects, I know) tell me it’s a healthy garden with good, strong soil. Bees, bumblebees and butterflies are welcomed guests because they fertilize squash, cucumbers and many other fruits in the garden. When I gardened at the 61st Street Community Garden, of blessed memory, I always had a praying mantis living and hunting in my plot. Today I saw the largest, most gorgeous dragonfly ever.

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More incredible scapes

IMG_2763As I’ve written before, garlic scapes are such a delicacy. A fine and abundant crop this year. And the promise of good hardneck garlic to harvest and cure next month.

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Summer fruits, part two

The strawberries are red and delicious, ready for daily picking and immediate eating.

The raspberries and blackberries will soon be luscious and ready for eating. Too good sun warmed to even make it into the house.

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Raspberries to come

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First peas

IMG_2751The first peas are ready for harvesting.

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