Oh, my! Garlic!

 I found out I've been planting my garlic in the wrong season all this time. I would plant it in the spring, with the onions. No. It wants to be planted in the fall.

Starting string

So, this time I did it right. I bought several garlic bulbs last fall and planted them in the triangle bed. When I harvested them today, there were a lot of other plants around that looked suspiciously like garlic. What happened to my leeks? They sure look more like garlic. What about those "flowers" in the south flowerbed? Isn't that -- oh, my! Garlic.  What happened?  I don't know if the birds planted them or if I did something in my sleep, but Wow! Do I have garlic! (The shiny round circle, by the way, is the electric meter on the back porch.)

With this much garlic to dry, how would I hang it? The stalks are not as flexible as onions. I cannot braid them. Hm... I could tie them but the stalks might fall out of the bundles. If I could just chain them together somehow. Hm.. Oh! Chain! Chain stitch! I'll crochet them together!!

Chain stitching each stalk

I began by laying a length of cotton yarn on a table. I then laid a handful of garlic over the yarn. Each time I picked up a stalk, I'd work a chain stitch around the stalk and then go to the next one.  When the garlic was a good handful, I cut the yarn and tied it to itself to create a bundle. This kept the garlic together and created a way to hang it for drying. It works best to make this tie about 2/3 the way up the stalk so that it hangs well when placed on a nail.

Bundle stitched together

My back porch has vinyl siding. That was too brittle to hold drying nails easily, so Leon helped my place some of the left-over lath from the tomato trellis across the wall between the back  door and the kitchen window. We nails into the lath every 6-8 inches apart. I hooked the crocheted ties over the nails and hung the garlic to dry. When I feel it is fully dry, I'll cut the bulbs off the ends and store them inside in net bags. The tops and the cotton string will go to the compost pile.

Alliums

Gnome and chives

I like alliums: onions, leeks, garlic, chives, wild garlic, wild onion... It doesn't matter what they are or where they grow. They have cheerful flowers and many of them taste good. (We won't address the mild allergy to garlic...)  This year wild garlic was prolific in the shade of the wooden dog pen. I felt guilty digging it up to put in the new raised bed for the cantaloupe and watermelon. Ah, but there are others in my garden. Chives wintered over again and are growing enthusiastically. The garlic that I planted as an afterthought last fall produced nicely.

Dried onions from 2009

Drying onions, 2012

The onions that I planted with my tomatoes last year got away from me. The tops died and I only found about half of them when I harvested. As usual, they were tiny: about the size of golf balls. This spring, all those missing onions sprouted and kept growing. When they went to seed, I enjoyed the balls of flower on the ends too much to harvest them. A few days ago, I broke down, dug them and braided their tops to dry. They are huge! Do onions need two years to make? Was it the organic fertilizer I used this spring that they liked? I know that you aren't supposed to harvest alliums after they go to seed, but what the hey? They were lost last year. Maybe they will be worth something this year. If not? Well, there is always the compost pile.

Leeks in bloom 2012

The leeks got away from me, too. I don't even care. They are so pretty! I enjoy going to the garden and watching the pollen gatherers at work. There are always honey bees working the leek blossoms. Wasps visit, and twice I have seen bumblebees at work. It gives me a charge to see the honey bees. My dad was a bee keeper. He had three or four hives in the garden, not to far from where I have my blackberries. When the hive would swarm, he would have to catch the new queen and her helpers to start a new hive. Who knows? Perhaps the bees working my garden escaped from Dad's hives.