Garlic bulbils: An inexpensive way to increase seed stock

If you've wanted an inexpensive way to increase your seed stock without spending a lot, grow garlic bulbils.

We started these Korean Red garlic rounds and bulbs in the fall--and they all grew from a few bulbil capsules. We probably harvested 100 bulbs and rounds. We'll plant them all this October. By the third year, we'll probably have 400 to 600 garlic bulbs. And they all will have. originated from garlic bulbils that sell for about $3 per capsule. How cool is that?

Spring Time at Last

Welcome to spring, y'all!  All that heirloom garlic's starting to green up, row after row, spread over an acre. So far, everything looks good. Really good.

The leaves started poking through about 10 days ago, when the last 18-inch snow pack melted.

Bavarian Purple heirloom garlic, getting its start after a long winter.

After a few days in the 50s and 60s, they're now standing about four inches tall throughout the field. Germination appears to be 90 percent overall--and that includes experimental varieties we're testing.

To keep things growing well, we'll fertilize with cottonseed meal in a few days to give those cloves a nice nitrogen boost.  Then come April, we'll drench the leaves with neem oil and compost tea. Neem oil keeps thrips and other pests that love to hide in garlic leaves to a minimum. Compost tea acts as a foliar feed, plus it feeds the soil.

It's wonderful to walk the fields and see that, after a long winter, we're off to an excellent start. We'll see how things grow as the season continues. Keep your fingers crossed that this will be our best season yet!

Field of green, with garlic about four inches tall after warmer weather.

Turkey vegetable soup with roasted garlic

Thanksgiving turkey's gone, but we still had some rich stock made from the bones languishing in the fridge. So we made a quick, flavorful soup for the last bit.

All it took was eight thumb-sized cloves of roasted garlic, some frozen peas, fresh carrots, spices, turkey stock and voila--a healthy, hearty soup.

Ready in less than 30 minutes, too. Make your own version and see what you can do with leftovers from the holidays!

First view of the new crop

Just took this picture of the new garlic crop for 2013. It's already sending up leaves, and the varieties planted several weeks ago are about three inches high. Not bad for a late start!

The Best Laid Plans of Garlic Farmers

The original 2013 garlic crop plan, with all its charts and spreadsheets, had us planting in October and finishing a few weeks before Thanksgiving. It was a good plan.

But that's not how it turned out. Life, health, weather and day jobs threw us a few curves. We started planting almost a month later than anticipated. As a result, we're still planting garlic. In December.

Peeling and preparing big cloves of Music garlic for planting. 

That definitely was not the plan.

If there's one thing farming teaches, it's that things don't always go according to plan.  Weather patterns change; suddenly the forecast turns from sunny to a week-long deluge. Unexpected pests or crop diseases decimate what had otherwise should have been a banner year. Ask some of the Midwestern garlic growers who got hit in 2012 with aster yellows disease.  They'll tell you: There's always something unexpected.

Last of the summer tomatoes

All those juicy heirloom tomatoes planted in late spring are just about done.  But we can still find some ripening on the vines, like these picked from a few days ago.

To my taste buds, there's nothing like an heirloom tomato. That earthy, slightly salty, juicy taste can't be duplicated by most modern hybrids. The yellow ones in the photo, appropriately called Yellow Pear, are a perfect example. Yellow Pear is a small heirloom cherry tomato that bursts in your mouth with a sweet, low-acid flavor. The same's true for the large red ones, called Omar's Lebanese. Omar's Lebanese runs with juice when you slice it, and, best of all from a grower's perspective, it's disease resistant.

(If only they could make tomatoes that are deer and duck resistant. That's a story for another day!)

We still have seeds left for both of these varieties and some other heirloom favorites we grew this year; I'll probably start seedlings around March. But it's a long time until next summer. So for now, we savoring each bite and slice of the last tomatoes of summer.

Home at last

It's been a whole week since the girls arrived at the farm. They're in their new paddock, and as you can see, they're adjusting nicely.

One of the ewe lambs. She's silver-white and needs a name. Any ideas?

Pandora. Love those white socks and the blaze on her face. 

Orly, a three-year-old mioget krunet Shetland. Those fancy Scottish words mean she's light chocolate with white facial markings.

The new black ewe also needs a name. Any ideas? 

The lovely Helena. Look closely and you can see her tiny horns.

Vita has soft, fine black fleece, and she adores being scratched and petted.