So most of the garlic I planted last fall is coming up and looks pretty good. Here’s a picture from a few days ago.
Looks like I am indeed going to rolling in garlic in a few months. Fortunately it keeps well if you dry it out correctly. Unfortunately the extra garlic that I had to plant in the side garden got kinda trampled by the painters.
Oh, have I mentioned that we’re getting our house painted right now? We’ve been talking about it for years, as the siding got more and more bare, and after getting paint chips all over the yard whenever it rained. But we finally got the resources and they gumption to get it done this year. It’s all part of our master plan to get the house fixed up this year, sell it next year, and buy a new house will more space for….. you guessed it, more gardens! We know what we like. 
Anyway, it couldn’t be helped that the side garden got a bit trampled since it’s right next to the house. The only thing in there was a small patch of garlic and a somewhat bigger patch of potatoes that I planted a few weeks ago. The local meme is to plant potatoes by Good Friday. Unfortunately we got a blizzard on Good Friday this year, so I had to wait a few more weeks. I got three kinds of potatoes from Seed Savers: Caribe, All Blue, and French Fingerlings. Caribe is a workhorse, All Blue is all blue, and French Fingerlings are supposed to be delicious. Anyway they haven’t even come up yet, so I don’t think they were too damaged by getting trampled. And potatoes are pretty darn tough. They grow them in Idaho, for Pete’s sake. I’ll have to wait and see. Oh, more pictures of what I’m talking about, but sans trampling.
Garlic on the front left, potatoes behind it. And Mike’s half-assed compost pile on the right. I’m not a good composter. I like letting other creatures do the work, like worms. But the bins were getting too much food last fall (and getting smelly as a result), so I started putting it outside in an open spot in the garden. 6 months later when the snow melted, there was my perfectly preserved compost pile, not composted at all. Composting is kind of an art. You need the right ratio of carbon to nitrogen with water and air. And time. Everything will compost eventually. Anyway, I’ve been just taking the un-composted stuff from my pile and bury it in the garden where it’ll break down eventually. And where I don’t have to look at it.
Oh, and the other new stuff. That’s it, behind the two rows of garlic:
I finally finished digging up the big triangle in our backyard. by turning over that last strip by the hedges. After dumping about 300 pounds of composted manure (from the store) there, I planted onions, peas, spinach, and lettuce there a few weeks ago. That’s all early crops that can survive a frost or freeze or even the errant snowstorm which we may still get. Everything is just starting to peek out of the ground and is blissfully separated from the house and so won’t get trampled. And since most of it will grow like crazy and be done by June, I can plant some later crop there then. Beans probably.
Told you another post was coming soon.
Mike
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Cool!
We don’t do much to our compost beyond the occasional turn, but we do add compost accelerator and it seems to really do the trick.
Despite my delayed start, most of my veggie seeds have already sprouted. Didn’t quite get to the peas on the weekend though. Too much other garden cleanup to do. Damn those attractive perennials!