Garlic

Melons happy after the rain

Monday night I heard the wind start to howl and it was getting dark fast. Then I heard thunder in the distance. I was praying that it wouldn't rain on us. Usually I go the other way. As a gardener I love summer thundershowers. But not on Monday night. The reason was my garlic. I had left it in the ground because of the massive rain storm we got over July 4th. I wanted it to dry out a bit before harvesting.

It wasn't supposed to rain. The predictions were for widely isolated thunderstorms. The odds that we would get hit were small. but boy did we get hit. We got about 2/3 of an inch in half an hour. So much for being dry.

When I got up on Tuesday I thought about what to do. When harvesting garlic any guide will tell you not to water before harvest. There isn't much you can do when Mother Natures turns on the spigot. I usually lay my garlic to dry out on my paths for a day, but the paths were wet.

The garlic was ready to come out and it wasn't going to wait. Some of them only had about four living leaves. Those living leaves are the layers on the bulb that will protect your bulbs in storage. And if you wait too long the bulbs start to open out a bit. So I was caught between a rock and a hard place. The garlic had to come out even if the conditions were horrible for it.

These are German Extra Hardy and they are a great storage garlic. I just hope they can store well this year too. I decided to just lay them on the soil in the morning and when the paths dry out in the afternoon I'd move them and flip them over.

For the next two days scattered thundershowers were predicted again. You just can't trust hot, humid weather. It will rain when you don't want it to and hold off when you do need the rain. At least the rest of the plants are happy with the extra water. But the garlic needed the protection of our bike shed. So once they were dry, I banged out dirt from the roots and bundled them up into eight bundles.

Each bundle has a pair so they can be tossed over the rafters. Now we won't have trouble with vampire infestations in the bike shed anymore. Or at least not for the next three weeks that it is drying.

The empty spot in the garden didn't stay empty for long. The next morning I was out early. I broadcast some mustard seed over the bed and raked it in. I'll water it every day until it comes up. I don't grow mustard for the leaves, but for the seed. Like last year I'm growing yellow mustard seed again. Hopefully in the fall I'll have enough to make mustard again. Mustard is often used for another reason too. Those nasty nematodes in the garden hate mustard. It is often used in rotation with other crops to keep it down in the soil. So if I'm smart, I'll plant carrots here next spring. Last year I was going to do it but forgot when making up the rotations. There is just so much to think about when making up rotations for the garden. Sometimes it is hard to remember it all. And this year my carrots have suffered a bit because of it.