Garlic & Potatoes

Yesterday while I was laying the drip pipeline a little potato plant was in the way. More curious to see the potato development than work around it, I pulled out the potato plant and dug out four medium sized Red Russet Potatoes.

Today evening I harvested the Red Russian Garlic (from West Coast Seeds) which we planted last fall. I am more than satisfied with the harvest. Except for a few bulbs most of them were more than 3" in diameter. My wife braided them together and hung it in the patio to air dry it. For this fall we plan to prepare a bed beside the fence and sow more of them.

There's more Garlic which I plan to harvest in a couple of weeks. I think this fall we might try a few more varieties of Garlic and more in quantity.

Tomatoes, Brassicaceae, Garlic

I was busy with work and also we have been waiting for the temperatures to warm up. We transplanted tomatoes, in the raised beds and planted marigolds in between them. The cabbages and cauliflowers are growing inspite being eaten by the snails and slugs. Every time there was a shower I went out to pick the snails & slugs which can eat all the leaves in one night. I had more cabbage saplings so I planted in front of the house between other taller plants. This would shield them from the direct sunlight. The Red Russian Garlic which we planted in the fall is doing great. I have to check the bulb formation - maybe I'll pull up one sometime next week as the shoots are over two feet high.

 Today we harvested Romaine Lettuce which was outgrowing the planter box. There's more coming up in the second planter box and also in the raised beds but I plan to sow more for a continuous supply.

Garlic

We set Red Russian Organic Garlic cloves (from West Coast Seeds) last October in the bed which we had harvested bell peppers earlier. Instead of adding compost we dug up the bed, added kitchen waste (no greasy or meaty products) and shredded brown cardboard (which the earthworms love) and covered it with top soil topping it off with coffee grounds from Starbucks. The waste soon would be rich compost in a few months. Seems the Garlic is doing well with the stalks more than a foot tall! After I spotted yellowing of some of the leaves I thought this was due to lack of nutrients and added organic fish emulsion diluted in water. It's doing better now. In between Spinach was sowed. The spinach seedlings have sprouted but they are less than an inch high today!