3rd week of July 2010

Harvesting Garlic It is HOT around these parts with a stretch of 90 degree weather and high humidity. I kept waiting for rain and we heard thunderstorms go through but not close enough for us to benefit from the moisture. Finally at the end of the week we were blessed with several good soakers. I hope they are enough to get my fall carrot and beet beds germinating and help my new cabbage and broccoli plants get established. One benefit of the dry weather is that we were able to pull the last of the garlic before the rain came. It was quite a job to pull 4000 and now it is all carefully labeled and drying on the barn floor. I was especially impressed by the size of the Georgian Crystal variety which is pictured. In a few weeks I will be bundling it in bunches of 10 to hang in a shed to continue drying. Another allium crop that did well this year were shallots. Pictured are frog leg shallots that grew to the size of onions. Growing shallots is extra enjoyable because they are an expensive gourmet item in the grocery store but are very simple to grow and store. I also like their full but mild flavor when using them raw in a salad or with tomato slices with basil. I may be saving back a good portion of my shallot crop as seed to plant even more next year.

Shallots Volunteer sunflowers are a fun part of my garden. I love having them pop up in random places to make things more cheerful. Here is a volunteer that went a little crazy and is almost 12 feet tall. Not sure if it is strong genetics or a generous clump of compost that caused this to happen. The plan is to save seed from this plant - if we can reach it before the birds do! Watching the finches feed on the seed heads is good entertainment but I also have a row of sunflowersmeant for fall decorations that I need to watch for the right time to harvest and dry before they are devoured.

Giant Sunflower Our family came home from the Family Farm Field Day last Saturday very inspired to try some new things. The event was held at an Amish farm in Fredericksburg and we were definitely in the minority that day with several thousand in the heavily Amish crowd. The keynote speaker was Dr. Arden Anderson, a medical doctor and soil consultant from Florida, who focused on the connections between soil health, plant health and people health. He uses a Brix meter to measure the dissolved solids and sugars in a plant as an indication of plant health and nutrient density. We came home and started testing more veggies with our Brix meter and plan to take it along to let friends try it out on their produce. Plus I went out that evening and gave the garden a good foliar dose of fish emulsion and other goodies. I also attended a session on making herbal tinctures and hope to make an echinacea immune booster. I have all the plants growing and just needed to see someone actually make one to get me started. Plus we heard sessions on tall grazing, the differences of A1/A2 milk and more. Learning more about the connections between soil and health just makes us so much more in awe of God's design for His Creation. An added extra of an event like this is seeing so many farming friends in one place. It was definitely a worthy summer vacation day that we ended with a batch of homemade ice-cream in our backyard.