Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[ValerieJ]

I think we have one more day without rain. And let's hope so because I want to get the garlic in the ground today.

In order to get rid of the ground cover that invaded the raised beds, we took out several inches of dirt and brought fresh in from the mulch pile. Going to mix some old chicken compost into it and visit Kaija's as well to see about this Gardener and Bloome organic compost that they mention in their garlic instructions.

First time trying garlic and I understand it wants a lot of nutrients and especially a lot of nitrogen. The folks at Kaija are a wealth of information. I bought the garlic "seeds" there but didn't know what questions to ask yet.

I think we're getting it in at about the right time.

Just one grand experiment after another around here.

 

[ValerieJ]

Actually, after reading Farmers' Almanac and some articles about chicken manure compost, we think we have what we need for the garlic. We have some well aged chicken compost, and the dirt we added for to build the bed back up is our kitchen waste compost pile, so that is all aged organic material. We are also adding some sand to the mix to make sure it is very light dirt.

For a crop that is supposedly carefree, it sure needs a lot of TLC. We have plenty of straw to cover it all over for the winter, which I understand we have to rake back up in the spring.

 

[pennyJo1960]

I have walking onion and garlic they seed themselves.
Guess I have enough to keep me going here.

 

[MichaelDJ]

I'm also just north of Tacoma! We've had a couple beautiful days.

Edgewood?

 

[pennyJo1960]

Mossyrock a quiet little town thank heavens.

 

[ValerieJ]

Well, the garlic is in. I have no idea how many cloves were planted. It was 10 whole bulbs. Should have plenty of garlic next year. The soil looks great.

 

[Smokerbill]

Well, the garlic is in. I have no idea how many cloves were planted. It was 10 whole bulbs. Should have plenty of garlic next year. The soil looks great.

Sounds like you're going to have lots of garlic to eat. What variety did you plant?

I dug around in my garlic bed and found the last two laggards. One had just broken ground, and I had to dig down an inch to find the other one was growing too. So all 60 cloves are growing!

I pulled up a curly parsley plant, got it cleaned and the leaves in the fridge. I might chop some with olive oil in my food processor and freeze chunks in an ice cube tray. That would be an easy way to preserve and use the parsley this winter.

I prepared a 3'x4' section of raised bed next to the garlic and used a small bit of it to plant some yellow onion and shallot seeds, about 20 seeds of each. This is an experiment to find out how well fall planting onion and shallot seeds will work out.

I weeded and prepped another small bed (not raised) and planted some poppy seeds that I saved from this year's flowers.

And I pulled out all the raggedy kale and collard plants (and all the weeds) from my smallest raised bed. I found a volunteer strawberry plant in the bed that I'm going to try to keep growing. Maybe it's a native strawberry, and it'll make a few berries next year. That would be cool.

 

[PopoMyers]

I think we have one more day without rain. And let's hope so because I want to get the garlic in the ground today.

In order to get rid of the ground cover that invaded the raised beds, we took out several inches of dirt and brought fresh in from the mulch pile. Going to mix some old chicken compost into it and visit Kaija's as well to see about this Gardener and Bloome organic compost that they mention in their garlic instructions.

First time trying garlic and I understand it wants a lot of nutrients and especially a lot of nitrogen. The folks at Kaija are a wealth of information. I bought the garlic "seeds" there but didn't know what questions to ask yet.

I think we're getting it in at about the right time.

Just one grand experiment after another around here.

It sure is quite an annual grand experiment, with various factors. This nice weather came at just the right time to finally plant garlic and flower bulbs. Just got a seed catalog, and found out that the onions I have saved seed from this year is an F1 hybrid. Do you think I should just buy new seed? I know the chickens love chive seeds, so I could give them these seed heads for a treat.

 

[PopoMyers]

Well, the garlic is in. I have no idea how many cloves were planted. It was 10 whole bulbs. Should have plenty of garlic next year. The soil looks great.

You'll probably get over 40.

 

[PopoMyers]

@Smokerbill I remember you saying you've already planted potatoes. What size potato do you find works best? I can't plant mine now, the moles are invading my whole garden, and they eat the taters.