Tag: garlic planting

Garlic Almanac – it’s planting time!

Popping garlic for replanting at Twin Oaks.
Photo Bell Oaks

It’s garlic planting time for many of us again and many growers are searching my site for information. Here are quick links to all of my many garlic posts over the years. I’ve added in ones from the past couple of years, since I wrote my post Garlic Almanac and Phenotypic Plasticity in May 2021. Those are Success with Storing Garlic, the timely Planting garlic and garlic scallions and my updated slideshow in the post My Garlic Slideshow.

After the links follows seasonal details on planting

Hot water treatment for seed garlic at WeeBee Farms. See my Alliums for November post

Much about garlic is to be found in my Alliums for the Month Series:

Garlic planting crew.
Photo Valerie Renwick

Other posts about garlic, starting with planting:

Margaret Roach’s site A Way to Garden

For a valuable second opinion, see Margaret Roach (who grows in Massachusetts) in A Way to Garden

A soil thermometer

When to Plant Garlic

Use a soil thermometer! Flag its location so you don’t lose track of it! Here in zone 7a, we plant in early November when the soil temperature at 4″ (10 cm) deep is 50°F (10°C) at 9 am. If the fall is unusually warm, we wait a week. Instructions from Texas A&M say less than 85°F (29°C) at 2″ (5 cm) deep. In New Hampshire, mid-October is the time. The guideline for areas with cold winters is 2-3 weeks after the first frost but before the ground freezes solid for the winter. In Michigan, planting time is 6 weeks prior to the ground freezing, giving enough time for root growth only, to avoid freezing the leaves. In California, garlic can be planted in January or February.

Both hardneck and softneck garlic do best when planted in the fall, though softneck garlic may also be planted in the very early spring if you have to (with reduced yields). If you miss the window for fall planting, ensure that your seed garlic gets 40 days at or below 40°F (4.5°C) in storage before spring planting, or the lack of vernalization will mean the bulbs will not differentiate (divide into separate cloves).

Grey Duck Garlic logo

Here I’ve combined information from Grey Duck Garlic with what I already knew.

  • Exposure to really hot weather in fall can reverse the vernalization process and result in smaller bulbs. Planting too early leads to poor growth and bulbing, and your seed cloves may disappear. If you plant when it is still too warm, the garlic has to sit in the ground until it gets cold enough to grow roots. During that time, it is susceptible to diseases, and pests including hungry voles. If planted too early, too much tender top growth can happen before winter, leading to its death when cold weather arrives.

Planting too late results in insufficient root growth to anchor and feed the plant for the winter. Plants may die during the winter or may struggle to restart growth once it warms up. Bulbs that do survive will be small.

  • In Zones 0–3, if there is no permafrost, plant garlic in September.
  • In Zones 3b–5, plant from late September to early October. Plant 2–3 weeks after the first frost but about 4–6 weeks before the ground freezes solid for the winter. This gives time for root development in the fall. Microclimates can make a big difference in marginal areas, and it is a lot colder at higher elevations.
  • In Zones 5–6b, plant in the second half of October. If your area does not normally get seasonally frozen ground, you could plant later.
  • In Zones 7–9, plant in early to mid-November; up till late November in Zone 9. Planting deeper helps keep the garlic at a steadier temperature (milder during the winter, cooler once spring heats up).
  • In Zones 9 and 10, look for soil to be less than 85°F (29°C) at 2″ (5 cm) deep – garlic can be planted in December or even as late as February if you have vernalized the planting stock. Garlic cloves need cold temperatures to start growing roots. (Vernalization for hardneck garlic = 6 weeks of cold temperature below 40–45°F/4–7°C; softneck is less demanding.) You can vernalize garlic in a refrigerator. Without sufficient vernalization, the bulbs will not differentiate (divide into separate cloves).
  • In Zones 11–13, I think plant in January or February after vernalization; check with local growers or your Extension Service as there’s very little info out there. See the excellent Grey Duck Farm’s Southern Garlic Grower’s Guide by Susan Fluegel.
  • If you miss the window for fall planting, ensure that your seed garlic gets 40 days at or below 40°F (4.5°C) in storage before spring planting (see info about vernalization above, under Zones 9 and 10)
Garlic shoots poking through the mulch in early January.
Photo Pam Dawling

Garlic Starts Growing When Conditions Are Right

Garlic roots will grow whenever the ground is not frozen, and the tops will grow whenever the temperature is above 40°F (4.5°C). In colder areas the goal is to get the garlic to grow roots before the big freeze-up arrives, but not to make top growth until after the worst of the weather.

In warmer areas, the goal is to get enough top growth in fall to get off to a roaring start in the spring, but not so much top growth that the leaves cannot endure the winter. If garlic gets frozen back to the ground in the winter, it can regrow and be fine. If it dies back twice in the winter, the yield will be lower than it might have been if you had been luckier with the weather. When properly planted, garlic can withstand winter lows of –30°F (–35°C).

Sources for Seed Garlic

Filaree Garlic Farm. WA

The Garlic Store, CO.

Keene Organic Garlic, Madison, WI

Irish Eyes. WA

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. VA

Territorial Seed. OR

Softneck garlic getting ready for harvest, with okra next door. Photo Wren Vile

Farming and Gardening in a Changing Climate

 

A crew of gardeners planting garlic in our East Garden. Photo Twin Oaks Community

Yesterday and today we have been planting garlic. This is the latest date we have planted garlic in at least 30 years, and maybe ever. We were waiting for the soil temperature to drop to 50F as a morning reading. October and most of November so far have been very warm and dry here. If planted into soil too warm in the fall, garlic makes too much top growth before cold weather slows it down, and suffers too much die-back from the cold.

I’ve written before about garlic and the planting temperature.

The warmer temperatures have affected our crops in other ways too. Our kale and spinach are growing really well outdoors, as is our last lettuce bed.

Tokyo bekana in our hoophouse.
Photo Twin Oaks Community

We have a hoophouse harvest schedule finely crafted over 20 years to maximise the food we get from that delightful space, and not waste food by growing too much. Our harvest schedule tells us what to expect when. We grow some fast-growing greens we can eat in November, and some slower ones to feed us all through the winter until mid-April. And some heading greens, pak choy and napa cabbage, to eat during December and January, the times of slow growth. Whole plants of Tokyo bekana are usually eaten in November, as they bolt if left until December.

Our strategy includes being sure to only harvest the leafy greens at a sustainable pace. This is the vegetable equivalent of not killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Having those big heading greens in December and January slows down our rate of harvesting leaves of spinach and Asian greens.

Spinach after and before harvesting. “Eight for Later”
Photo Pam Dawling

We have a mnemonic “Eight for Later”, which means leave at least 8 small central leaves on each plant of spinach, tatsoi, yukina savoy, kale, mizuna, etc. Chard and senposai can survive on “Six for Later” as their leaves are big.

Our fall hoophouse crops get planted in September and October.

Winter Hoophouse Harvest Dates

  • October: beet greens, radishes, spinach, tatsoi.
  • From November onwards: As October plus arugula, brassica salad mix, chard, lettuce leaves, mizuna and scallions.
  • From December: as November plus kale, senposai, turnips, and Yukina Savoy.
  • From January: as December
  • During December: whole plants of Tokyo Bekana, Maruba Santoh.
  • During January: heads of Chinese cabbage, pak choy, tatsoi.

Having the big heading crops in December and January gets us through the slow-growth period.

Most loose-leaf crops last until mid-April or later.

A flower stem on a bolting pak choy plant in our hoophouse 20 Nov 2024. Photo Pam Dawling

This year we already have giant Tokyo bekana, pak choy and Blues Chinese cabbage. The pak choy is bolting and will not be feeding us in January!

Our previously successful planting and harvesting schedule is getting a shake-up. Last fall and this year too, we tried to cram in more crops, in the spaces we didn’t need until mid-November or December. These catch crops need to be fast growing, and finding things that are fast growing in November and December is challenging. Small leafy greens do well, although we also strive to get some beets. (A failure with beets has the back-up success of yielding beet greens, so all is not lost.)

Beet seedlings in 2023, when we put new baseboards and plastic on our hoophouse. This year we tried allowing a longer period for the beets to develop, but then we didn’t thin them enough. . . Photo Pam Dawling (We’re very happy with the metal baseboards!)

Although we know that beets get stunted if not promptly singled, we didn’t get to all of them in time. And the truth is, we are so busy in October with bed prep and planting, that it is hard to find time for singling beets! We might decide to try again next year, with heightened awareness about thinning/singling, or we might go for leafy crops only.

So that’s the vegetable side of life. Meanwhile, the manager of our dairy herd reports that she has had an impossible time maintaining milk yields, because cows either didn’t get pregnant, or did, but then reabsorbed the calf fetus. Our vet says other livestock farmers have had the same trouble: it’s just been plain too hot. And the hot weather running late into the fall means that the poor creatures are panting away in their already-thick winter coats. I wondered why they were lurking in the shade of the solar arrays, even in November. I have choices about what clothes I wear, but the cattle don’t.

I suppose we could invest in portable shade canopies or mister systems, or try Brahman cows – the ones with humps on their backs. Brahmans are an American breed of zebuine-taurine hybrid beef cattle, bred in the US from 1885 using cattle originally from India. I believe at least one farm in Virginia keeps them, including cows for milking. They are heat-tolerant but less cold-tolerant. They don’t sound like an easy option. Expensive, slow to become productive. Shade sounds easier. Not sure how well misters would work in a climate as humid as ours.

Our Blues Chinese cabbage in the hoophouse are already reaching full size. Unlikely they will wait until January to be harvested then. Photo Pam Dawling

I’m only a concerned consumer and fellow-community member, as far as dairy and meat products go, and my main attention is on the vegetable crops. Our hoophouse crew is a small group of experienced growers who are self-starters and good communicators. We take one or more whole days each a week and run things as we think best, guided by a task list we have drawn up and the discussions we have at our weekly crew meeting. We keep careful records and pay attention to what’s happening in there. Currently I’m trying to ID a small flighty moth that is brown with creamy white bars and spots. It flies up from the senposai and turnips. If anyone knows, or has an idea, please leave a comment.

Vegetable harvests, articles on seed saving and garlic planting, workshop on cover crops.

 

Close up of Cow Horn okra pods.
Photo Kathryn Simmons

There are several aspects of vegetable harvesting. In this post I will look first at maturity indicators, then at four ranges of cold-hardy crops for harvest at various stages of winter, followed by a reminder of the order for harvesting storable crops, according to the coldest temperature they can take. After that I have links to a couple of other websites with great information on these topics, a mention of two articles on seed saving  and one on garlic planting I have in Growing for Market magazine. And a link to a Mother Earth News Fair Online workshop on establishing winter cover crops.

Harvest and Maturity Indicators

Don’t harvest too soon or too late. How do you know when it’s ready to harvest? Different factors are important for different crops. Use all your senses.

  • Size: Cow Horn okra at 5”/13 cm (others shorter), green beans a bit thinner than a pencil, carrots at whatever size you like, 7”/18 cm asparagus, 6”/15 cm zucchini
  • Color: Garden Peach tomatoes with a pink flush. The “ground spot” of a watermelon turns from greenish white to buttery yellow at maturity, and the curly tendrils where the stem meets the melon to turn brown and dry. For market you may harvest “fruit” crops a bit under-ripe
  • Shape: cucumbers that are rounded out, not triangular in cross-section, but not blimps. Sugar Ann snap peas get completely round before they reach peak sweetness.
  • Softness or texture: eggplants that “bounce back” when lightly squeezed, snap beans that are crisp with pliable tips. Harvest most muskmelons when the stem separates easily from the fruit (“Full slip”).
  • Skin toughness: storage potatoes when the skins don’t rub off, usually two weeks after the tops die, whether naturally or because of mowing.
  • Sound: watermelons sound like your chest not your head or your belly when thumped. Try the “Scrunch Test” – press down firmly on the melon and listen and feel for the separation of the ripe flesh inside the melon.

Cabbages are fully mature when the head is firm and the outer leaf on the head is curling back. Ignore the separate “wrapper leaves” when making this judgment. If you need to keep mature cabbage in the ground a few days longer, twist the heads to break off some of the feeder roots and limit water uptake, and they will be less likely to split.

Mature cabbage showing curled leaf on the head.
This educational photo of a split cabbage is provided by Firesign Farm

Broccoli
Select blue-green broccoli heads and harvest them before the flower buds open, but after they’ve enlarged. We press down with finger-tips and spread our fingers to see if the head is starting to loosen.

Young immature broccoli head after rain
Photo Wren Vile

Sweet Corn

Sweet corn will be ready to harvest about three weeks after the first silks appear. Corn is ready when the ears fill to the end with kernels and the silks become brown and dry. An opaque, milky juice will seep out of punctured kernels. You can use your thumbnails to cur through the husk on the side and view the kernels. Don’t make your cut on top of the ear, or the dew and rain will get in and rot the corn.

Sweet corn ears are mature when the silks die and turn brown. Photo Kathryn Simmons
Mature Sweet corn ear.

Garlic

Garlic is ready to harvest when the sixth leaf down is starting to brown on 50% of the crop. See Ron Engeland’s Growing Great Garlic. Harvesting too early means smaller bulbs (harvesting way too early means an undifferentiated bulb and lots of wrappers that then shrivel up). Harvesting too late means the bulbs may “shatter” or have an exploded look, and not store well.

Cut across hardneck garlic – airspaces around the stem show maturity

Music garlic cut open showing gaps around stem – a sign of maturity.
Photo Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
Garlic bulb cut horizontally to check maturity (good now or soon).
Photo Wren Vile

Onions

Wait until the tops fall over to harvest, then gently dig up the whole plant and dry. Leave the dry, papery outer skin on the onion for protection.

Onions curing and drying in strings. Photo by Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Four Ranges of Cold-Hardy Crops for Harvest at Various Stages of Winter

  1. Crops to keep alive into winter to 22°-15°F (-6°C to -9°C), then harvest. Harvest and use soon: Asian greens, broccoli, cabbage, chard, lettuce, radishes. Harvest and store: beets, cabbage, carrots, celeriac, kohlrabi, winter radish (including daikon), rutabagas, turnips. Many greens and roots can survive some freezing, so it is worth experimenting to find how late you can keep crops outdoors.
  2. Hardy winter-harvest crops: cabbage (Deadon), carrots, collards, kale, leeks, parsnips, scallions, spinach. We grow our winter-harvest crops in our raised bed area, which is more accessible in winter and more suited to small quantities.
  3. Overwinter crops for spring harvests before the main season. Some crops, if kept alive through the winter, will start to grow again with the least hint of spring weather and be harvestable earlier than spring plantings. Depending on your climate, the list can include carrots, chard, chicories such as radicchio and sugarloaf, chives, collards, garlic, garlic scallions, kale, lettuce, multiplier onions (potato onions), scallions, spinach. In mild areas, peas can be fall sown for a spring crop. Sow 1″ (2.5 cm) apart to allow for extra losses.
  4. Winter hoophouse crops: The rate of growth of cold-weather crops is much faster inside a hoophouse than outdoors. The crop quality, especially with leafy greens, is superb. Plants can tolerate lower temperatures than outdoors; they have warmer soil around their roots, and the pleasant daytime conditions in which to recover. Salad greens in a hoophouse can survive nights with outdoor lows of 14°F (–10°C) without inner rowcover.

In my post Root Crops in October, I gave this list of storable crops in the order for harvesting, related to how cold they can survive.

Clear and store (in this order):

  • Sweet potatoes 50°F (10°C)
  • “White” Peruvian potatoes 32°F (0°C) approximately
  • Celeriac 20°F (°C)
  • Turnips 20°F (°C)
  • Winter radish 20°F (°C)
  • Beets 15-20°F (°C)
  • Kohlrabi, 15°F (°C)
  • Carrots 12° F (°C)
  • Parsnips 0°F (°C)

———————————–

Here are some links to a couple of good sources for more harvest information:

  1. Piedmont Master Gardeners Garden Shed Newsletter

Guidelines for Harvesting Vegetables by Pat Chadwick

A list of seven basic principles of harvesting, followed by a crop-by-crop list of almost 50 individual crops and a resource list of 18 publications (focused on the mid-Atlantic and Southeast)

  1. October Tips from Harvest to Table, by Steve Albert covers all climate zones and comes complete with a USDA Hardiness Zone Map

Prepare your garden for colder weather, plant winter crops where there is still time, harvest crops that will suffer from cold, construct low tunnels with rowcover or clear plastic to keep crops somewhat protected from wind and cold temperatures

Links to other posts by Steve Albert

How to Prepare a Winter Vegetable Garden

Predicting Frost in the Garden

Garden Tips for October

Growing for Market articles

Harvesting seeds this fall?

I have written articles for Growing for Market magazine about growing and saving seeds (August and September issues), and planting garlic (October issue).

Given the shortages of some varieties this spring, it wouldn’t surprise us if more people tried producing seeds of vegetable or flower varieties this year. Here are links to articles from the August and September magazines, covering wet and dry seed processing.

Roma tomatoes cut in half for seed extraction.
Photo Pam Dawling

Wet seed processing and saving

Wet seeds are embedded in fruit. Wet processing has four steps: scooping out the seeds or mashing the fruit, fermenting the seed pulp for several days, washing the seeds and removing the pulp and then drying the washed seeds.

Read the article “Wet seed processing and saving”

Dry seed processing and saving

Dry seeds develop in pods, husks or ears, and dry on the plant rather than inside a fruit. While you obviously want to get seeds into the hands of growers before they need to plant, and into seed catalogs before they get printed, often there is no urgency to extract the dry-seeded crops from their pods. You can wait for a slower time, or use seed cleaning as a rainy-day job.

Read the article “Dry seed processing and saving”

—————————————————

Mother Earth News Fair

I have a workshop on Winter Cover Crops for Gardeners as part of the Mother Earth News Fair Online Winter Gardening Course. The Winter Gardening Course features 7 videos, each 21-44 minutes long. Mine’s 32 minutes on cover crops.

You can enroll for the 8-course Winter Gardening Course for $20.

Or choose the 2020 all-access course bundle of 21 courses (over 100 videos) for $150.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sustainable Farming Practices slideshow, garlic planting, annual crop review

Sustainable Farming Practices 90 mins 2019

Here’s my updated slide show Sustainable Farming Practices (for Vegetable Growers). You can view it right here. This is the second workshop I presented at the Carolina farm Stewardship Sustainable Agriculture Conference. The handout for the workshop is here as a pdf.

Sustainable Farming Practices 6 pg handout 2019

We’ve just completed our annual Crop Review meeting. We prepared a spreadsheet of all the crops we grew, when we planted them, what varieties and so on. We went down the list alphabetically and shared what we could remember about how well each planting did. I’ve written about this process a couple of years ago, in my book, and also in Growing for Market magazine back in December 2007.

This year we had a hard spring, with El Nino. Cold wet weather prevented us planting everything we planned to. We didn’t grow spring potatoes or turnips this year. We did sow snap peas but I think they all rotted in the ground. We had good spring crops of carrots and beets (once germinated, things grew well!). Our spring broccoli and cabbage were good, but our fall ones got lost in weeds, when we didn’t have enough workers. We failed to get a timely delivery of the pedio wasps to deal with the bean beetles, and our beans had low germination rates this year. Our sweet corn did well all season, after the flooded end of the first sowing was forgotten.

Leeks and scenery Kati Falger
Leeks, sunflowers and buckwheat
Kati Falger

We had plentiful cucumbers, and enough zucchini and yellow squash; our leeks this winter are the best ever (thanks to attention to weeding, and to side dressing with compost in the late summer). The lettuce supply was good all through the spring and early summer, and is great now. We lost lettuce to cutworms in August. Okra was very abundant, as were eggplant – the hot summer was good for them. Our peppers did well, our Roma paste tomatoes were a bust, mostly because we didn’t keep up with string weaving. Sweet potatoes and June-planted potatoes yielded poorly. Our cherry and slicing tomatoes did well, but came to an early end. The fall greens (kale, spinach, collards, senposai, Yukina Savoy, turnip greens) are now doing really well, after an early battle with baby grasshoppers. Our fall turnips are the best in many years.

Purple top turnips. Photo Small Farm Central
Purple top turnips.
Photo Small Farm Central

At the Crop Review meeting we popped our hardneck garlic bulbs apart for planting. On the next two days we planted that (3180 row feet). The day after that we popped our softneck garlic and planted that (1080 row feet) and also planted all the reject tiny cloves for garlic scallions. Click the link to read about growing and harvesting these yummy spring treats. We’re up to date with preparing for the end of garden shifts and the transition to one person each day taking care of the hoophouse, greenhouse, weather station and harvesting the remaining outdoor crops. We’ll work that way until the end of January, and then start pruning blueberries and grapes.

Garlic planting crew. Photo Valerie Renwick
Garlic planting crew.
Photo Valerie Renwick
Covering garlic cloves. Photo Brittany Lewis
Covering garlic cloves.
Photo Brittany Lewis
Garlic scallions in April. Photo Kathryn Simmons
Garlic scallions in April.
Photo Kathryn Simmons

Phenology – What happens when

Flowering Purple (or Red) Dead Nettle, with honeybee.Credit Kathryn Simmons
Flowering Purple (or Red) Dead Nettle, with honeybee.
Credit Kathryn Simmons

For ten years I have been keeping phenology records, as a guide to when to plant certain crops, and as a way of tracking how fast the season is progressing.

Phenology involves tracking when certain wild and cultivated flowers bloom, seedlings emerge, or various insects are first seen. These natural events can substitute for Growing Degree Day calculations. Certain natural phenomena are related to the accumulated warmth of the season (rather than, say, the day-length), and by paying attention to nature’s calendar you will be in sync with actual conditions, which can vary from year to year, and are changing over a longer time-scale..

Many people know to sow sweet corn when oak leaves are the size of a squirrel’s ear. By this point, regardless of date, the season has warmed enough to get oak leaves to that size, which happens to be warm enough for sweet corn seed to germinate and grow well. Some people transplant eggplant, melons and peppers when irises bloom; sow fall brassicas when catalpas and mockoranges bloom; and know to look for squash vine borers laying eggs for the two weeks after chicory flowers. Some transplant tomatoes when the lily of the valley is in full bloom, or the daylilies start to bloom.

Lilac is often used to indicate when conditions are suitable for various plantings:

  •   When lilac leaves first form, plant potatoes
  •  When lilac is in first leaf (expanded), plant carrots, beets, brassicas, spinach, lettuce
  • When lilac is in early bloom, watch out for crabgrass germinating
  • When lilac is in full bloom, plant beans, squash, corn. Grasshopper eggs hatch.
  • When lilac flowers fade, plant cucumbers.

Also, recording the dates of the same biological events each year can show longer term climate changes. In Europe, 500 years of recorded dates of grape harvests provide information about summer temperatures during that time. Project Budburst is a citizen science field campaign to log leafing and flowering of native species of trees and flowers across the US each year. Each participant observes one or more species of plant for the whole season.

 Here’s our Twin Oaks Phenology Record so far:

(c) Pam Dawling, 2013
Event 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Notes
Crocus blooming 26-Jan 25-Jan 6-Feb 10-Feb 28-Feb 17-Feb 30-Jan
Chickweed blooming 8-Feb 1-Jan 5-Mar 10-Feb 13-Mar 19-Feb 13-Feb 15-Feb
Robins arrive 27-Feb 31-Jan 20-Jan 26-Feb 2-Mar 14-Feb
Henbit blooming 14-Mar 7-Mar 12-Jan 6-Jan 7-Feb 20-Feb 22-Mar 2-Mar 15-Feb 15-Feb
Daffodils blooming 17-Mar 9-Mar 7-Mar 1-Mar 22-Feb 3-Mar 5-Mar 15-Mar 3-Mar 17-Feb Plant potatoes
Dead-nettle blooming 18-Mar 6-Mar 7-Mar 8-Mar 14-Mar 9-Feb 24-Feb 13-Mar 21-Jan 22-Feb 10-Feb
Spring Peepers first heard 4-Mar 11-Mar 10-Mar 3-Mar 3-Mar 6-Mar 11-Mar 28-Feb 23-Feb 5-Mar Plant peas
Overwinter Grasshoppers seen 26-Feb 4-Apr 25-Feb
Maples Blooming 10-Mar 6-Mar 15-Mar 12-Mar 28-Feb
Dandelion blooming 16-Mar 16-Mar 24-Jan 1-Jan 3-Mar 17-Mar 9-Mar 8-Mar 19-Mar Sow beets, carrots
Forsythia blooming 13-Mar 12-Mar 28-Mar 10-Mar 23-Mar 13-Mar 17-Mar 21-Mar 15-Mar 12-Mar 15-Mar Plant peas. Crabgrass germinates.
Peach blooming 15-Mar 25-Mar 26-Mar 25-Mar 13-Mar
Cabbage White Butterfly 25-Mar 20-Mar 7-Mar 8-Mar 11-Mar 6-Apr 24-Mar 12-Mar 14-Mar Dutch white clover blooms
Harlequin bugs 10-Apr 13-Mar 26-Mar 12-May 16-Apr 29-Apr 14-Mar
Johnny Jump-up blooming 16-Mar 30-Mar 14-Mar 20-Mar 3-Apr 17-Mar
Flowering Cherry blooming 27-Mar 4-Apr 3-Apr 1-Apr 6-Apr 25-Mar 17-Mar 18-Mar 20-Mar
Asparagus spears 6-Apr 4-Apr 4-Apr 5-Apr 6-Apr 6-Apr 21-Mar 19-Mar
Redbud blooming 5-Apr 13-Apr 9-Apr 3-Apr 2-Apr 7-Apr 9-Apr 7-Apr 4-Apr 19-Mar Expect flea beetles
Smartweed germinating 15-Apr 10-Apr 15-Apr 6-Apr 11-Apr 1-Apr 23-Mar 20-Mar <149 GDD base 48F
Lambsquarters germinating 20-Mar 20-Mar <150 GDD base 48F
Violets blooming 29-Mar 26-Mar 28-Mar 6-Apr 22-Mar 20-Mar
Morning Glory germinating 27-Apr 10-Apr 3-Apr 26-Apr 24-Apr 25-Apr 22-Mar >349 GDD base 48F
Tiger Swallowtail 19-Apr 29-Mar 15-Apr 16-Apr 18-Apr 10-Apr 28-Mar
Apples blooming 18-Apr 20-Apr 14-Apr 7-Apr 12-Apr 28-Mar
Dogwood (Amer.) full bloom 5-Apr 21-Apr 13-Apr 28-Mar Plant peppers; soil 65 F
Strawberries bloom 13-Apr 11-Apr 14-Apr 12-Apr 4-Apr 2-Apr 15-Apr 6-Apr 8-Apr 30-Mar
Lilac full bloom 16-Apr 20-Apr 21-Apr 22-Apr 19-Apr 21-Apr 14-Apr 18-Apr 1-Apr Plant beans, squash
Crimson Clover blooming 29-Apr 2-May 16-Apr 22-Apr 23-Apr 27-Apr 18-Apr 25-Apr 4-Apr
Whippoorwill first heard 1-May 22-Apr 15-Apr 24-Apr 17-Apr 25-Apr 8-Apr 14-Apr 5-Apr
Galinsoga germinating 1-May 22-Apr 16-Apr 20-Apr 6-Apr
White Oak “squirrel’s ear” 20-Apr 26-Apr 23-Apr 26-Apr 25-Apr 14-Apr 23-Apr 12-Apr Plant sweet corn
Tulip Poplar blooming 2-May 10-May 3-May 26-Apr 3-May 6-May 26-Apr 28-Apr 17-Apr Plant sw corn 200 GDD base 50F
Ragweed germinating 20-Apr 16-Apr 25-Apr 26-Apr 21-Apr Plant sw corn 200 GDD base 50F
Last Frost 24-Apr 4-May 3-May 1-May 8-May 17-Apr 19-May 10-May 14-Apr 25-Apr Average 4/30 (10 yrs)
Fireflies 7-May 2-May 1-May
Colorado Potato Beetle adult 22-May 3-May 7-May 29-Apr 27-Apr 3-May 25-Apr 2-May
Strawberries ripe 10-May 17-May 12-May 10-May 7-May 15-May 3-May 10-May 7-May
Purslane germinating 26-May 8-May 22-May 5-May 20-May 15-May 8-May
Baby Grasshoppers 12-Jul 30-Jun 26-Jun 17-Jun 16-May
Cicada first heard/seen 14-May 5-Jul 3-Jul 29-Jun 17-May
Hardneck garlic mature 14-Jun 19-Jun 13-Jun 5-Jun 4-Jun 30-May 9-Jun 11-Jun 6-Jun 31-May
Foxgloves bloom 6-Jun 11-Jun 8-Jun Bean beetle eggs hatch
Bean Beetle eggs 4-Jun 16-Jun 10-Jun 6-Jun 20-Jun Hatch when foxgloves bloom
Japanese Beetle first seen 16-Jun 21-Apr 15-Jun 20-Jun 29-Jun 21-Jun 850 GDD (base 50F)
“June” Bugs first seen 5-Jul 11-Jul 2-Jul 12-Aug 10-Jul 30-Jun 29-Jun 30-Jun 23-Jun
Corn Earworm first seen 28-Jul 8-Jul 12-Jul 10-Jul 14-Jul 150-490 (base 54F)
Fall Dead-nettle germinating 1-Sep 20-Aug 30-Aug 20-Aug 16-Aug 20-Aug 15-Aug 29-Aug 18-Aug Plant spinach
Fall Henbit germinating 28-Aug 20-Aug 29-Aug 18-Aug
Fall Chickweed germinating 7-Sep 7-Sep 5-Sep 6-Sep Plant spinach
First Fall Frost 3-Oct 6-Nov 27-Oct 13-Oct 29-Oct 20-Oct 19-Oct 23-Oct 30-Oct 22-Oct Average 10/22 (9 yrs)
Harmonia Ladybugs migrate east 18-Oct 12-Nov 21-Oct 27-Oct
Garlic planted (hardneck) 25-Oct 20-Oct 9-Nov 3-Nov 11-Nov 1-Nov 5-Nov 11-Nov 15-Nov 6-Nov Soil temp 50 F
Event 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Notes

Crop review, harvesting roots

Large Smooth Prague Celeriac
Photo credit Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

This week in the garden we have started fall clean-up. We packed away the rowcovers preserving the last rows of green beans, squash and cucumbers, and harvested the last of those crops. Two nights with lows of 22F made it clear it was time. We removed the okra and eggplant “trees”, and pulled up the t-posts from the tomato rows and the asparagus beans. We bundled the asparagus bean trellis netting, along with the bean vines, and tied it up in the rafters of our greenhouse. It will stay there till spring when we will dance on the bundle in the parking lot and shake out the dried bits of vine, so we can use the netting for the 2013 crop.

We discovered we can use our power-washer to clean the t-posts before storing them. This saves a lot of time, and converts the job from a tedious chore with knives and wire brushes into a “power rangers” opportunity. We like to get the posts really clean before storing them to reduce the chance of carrying over soil-borne tomato diseases to next season.

White Egg turnip
Photo credit Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

We have started clearing crops which are less cold-tolerant. This week we are working on the vegetables that get killed at temperatures of 25°F and 20°F. Fall weather in our part of Virginia doesn’t usually get this cold this early, but there’s no arguing with it. We’ve got the Chinese cabbage (Napa cabbage) in and we’re going for the small bit of bulb fennel soon (both 25°F crops). We’re picking the broccoli twice a week as long as it lasts, although yields are right down now. Next we’re after the celeriac, turnips (no rutabagas this year), and winter radishes. Sadly our fall beets all failed, so we don’t need to dig those. We still have some from the spring crop in good condition in perforated plastic bags in the fridge.  Kohlrabi, cabbage, carrots and parsnips are more cold-tolerant, so they can wait to get harvested in a few weeks. We still have lettuce and celery outdoors under rowcover and hoops. And some of the greens and hardier leeks will feed us all through the winter. Twin Oaks is now in Climate Zone 7a. This means the range of the average annual minimum temperature is 0°F to 5°F.

Popping garlic cloves in preparation for planting
Photo credit Southern Exposure Seed Exhcange

We’re getting ready to plant garlic. The soil has certainly cooled down enough this year! We decided to cut back our total amount of garlic planted this year for two or three reasons. One is that we think we’ll still have enough if we plant 16% less, and maybe we’ll be less wasteful. Another is that we hope the time we’ll save at harvest and curing will enable us to take better care of what we have got, and less will get wasted that way. Another is that it will help our crop rotation in the raised beds, where we grow a lot of alliums – garlic and potato onions over the winter, onions in spring, shallots and scallions in the mix, and leeks from mid-summer to late winter. Sometimes doing a smaller amount well is more productive than over-extending ourselves  with a big crop.

Yesterday we started separating the garlic cloves (“popping” the cloves) at our annual Crop Review meeting. This is when the crew gathers to work through an alphabetical list of crops we grew and talk about what worked and what didn’t and what we want to do differently next year. We plan to try a small amount of West Indian gherkins as an alternative to pickling cucumbers, which seemed plagued by disease. (I saw some very robust gherkins growing at Monticello in September.) We’re looking for a heat-tolerant eggplant variety to trial alongside our well-liked Nadia, which shut down during the early summer heat. We intend to make smaller plantings of edamame next year, and harvest smaller amounts more often, so less goes to waste. We want to try Sugar Flash snap peas and another dwarf early-yielding type of snow peas. (Dwarf Grey works for us, but Oregon Giant didn’t). We’re going to try some purple bush beans to see if that helps us get harvests of nice small beans and fewer ugly giants in the buckets. We debated the harvest size of okra and asparagus too. We vowed to grow fewer different varieties of broccoli and try to find a decent red cabbage. This year we tried Integro, Ruby Perfection and Mammoth Red, but none produced a good amount of nice sized heads. We used to be happy with Super Red 80, but gave it up after two bad years. next year we’ll try Red Express. We strategised about to get red sweet peppers as early as possible.

As the tasks to do outdoors start to wind down, we’re upping the pace of our winter planning season. Our next tasks include doing an inventory of the seeds we still have and figuring out our garden plan, so that we can work towards ordering the seeds we want in sensible quantities.

Twin Oaks November Calendar (and December)

Garlic shoots emerging through the mulch in November

November -The End is in Sight

During the month

Lettuce Factory: Sow lettuce in hoophouse, for January transplants.

Write Thank You Letter to Paracrew (part-time workers)

Early November: Finish up sowing cover crops in Nov. Can sow winter wheat in early November (won’t winter-kill). Sow wheat or rye in carrot beds by 11/30(?), or if too late for cover crops, just spread carrot tops on beds.

Sow onions to overwinter in hoophouse.

Plant hard-neck garlic when soil temp at 4″ deep is 50°F, and mulch immediately, not too thickly.

Plant soft-neck garlic.

Plant leftover small garlic cloves for garlic scallions and garlic greens.

Potato onions: till beds.  11/1-12/1: Plant medium-size (1½-2” diameter) potato onions, at 6”, or wider if supply is limited.  Cover with ½-1” soil, then mulch. If planning a January planting of small potato onions, prep bed and roll mulch now.

Sow spinach (for spring harvesting) in early November if not done already.

Mid November: Free trapped garlic shoots from over-thick mulch, when 50% emerged.

Cover lettuce, spinach (“burns” below 10°F), celery, zukes & cukes and Chinese cabbage. Use double hoops for the spinach, celery, and the last lettuce bed.

Harvest: celeriac (hardy to 20°F), beets (15-20°F), turnips(20°F), kohlrabi (15°F), winter radish (20°F), rutabagas (OK to 20°F), carrots (12°F), parsnips (0°F) in that order. Wash and store in perforated plastic bags in walk-in cooler. Record yields.

After curing, store boxes of sweet potatoes in basement cage (55-60°F, 80-90% humidity).

Sort white potatoes in storage 2 weeks after harvest.

Spread lime or gypsum as needed, referring to soil analysis results.

Potato Onions: sell small ones (<1½”) or store on racks until January. Ideal conditions 32-40°F, 60-70% humidity, good ventilation, layers < 4” deep. Do not seem to suffer from freezing.

Winterize the rototillers and BCS mower.

Planning:

Week 1: Check the accounts and prepare Budget Requests for economic planning. Write Informant. Revise Seed Inventory spreadsheet.

Week 2: Inventory seeds

Week 3: Inventory seeds

Week 4: Seed Inventory: proof reading, etc. File notes.

Perennials: Cut dead asparagus tops with weed whackers or machetes, and remove all ferns. Weed strawberries and spread sawdust in aisles. Weed and fertilize rhubarb, blueberries, asparagus, and spread cardboard and sawdust, (hay for asparagus if possible). Weed grapes, take vine cuttings. Transplant new blueberries if needed.

November Harvests: last outdoor lettuce (hardy to 15°F with rowcover), beets (15-20°F), broccoli (25°F), cabbage (12°F), cauliflower, celeriac (20°F), celery (15°F with rowcover), chard (10°F), fall greens, collards (5°F), fennel (25°F), kale (0°F), kohlrabi (15°F), komatsuna (15°F), leeks (fall leeks hardy to 12-20°F, winter ones to 5°F or lower), parsnips (0°F), scallions (25°F), senposai (12°F), spinach (0°F), tatsoi (10°F), turnips (20°F), yukina savoy (10°F).

December – Time to Rest

Perennials: see November. Cut fall raspberry canes (after leaves have dropped) with pruners, to the ground. Weed raspberries. Hang blueberry drip tape in the branches. Dig docks from asparagus patch.

Plant medium potato onions, if not done in November.

Drain and store the hoses and irrigation. Clean up stakes, labels.

Planning:

Week 1: Prepare seed order spreadsheet. Decide seed order.

Week 2: Revise Lettuce List, lettuce Log. Spend last of money. Check expenditures and spend remaining budget. File the year’s accumulated notes.

Week 3: Put your feet up and read seed catalogs and inspiring gardening books

Week 4: Put your feet up and read seed catalogs and inspiring gardening books

December Harvests: cold frame spinach or lettuce, cabbage (hardy to12°F), celery (15°F with rowcover), chard (10°F), collards (5°F), kale (0°F), komatsuna, leeks (fall leeks hardy to 12-20°F, winter ones to 10°F or lower), parsnips (0°F), senposai (12°F), spinach (0°F), yukina savoy (10°F).

Winter Squash in storage at Twin Oaks potato onion planting, potato onion storage,

C F S A Conference Update

 

Register today or tomorrow!

I’m gearing up to present a workshop at the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association conference in Greenville, South Carolina. My workshop, Growing Great Garlic, is on Saturday October 27 from 2.30-4pm. You can check out the schedule here.

UPDATES: After the late registration deadline (Oct. 17), you’ll have to wait to register on-site at the Conference.The Local Foods Feast on Friday, Oct. 26 and the Saturday, Oct. 27 Luncheon are now sold out, which means that the Everything Conference Package is no longer available.  You can still register today and tomorrow for the Conference Weekend Pass, which gets you in to all the conference action happening from Friday, Oct. 26 at 4:00pm – Sunday, Oct. 28 at 12:00 pm.  For your meals during the Conference, there are plenty of outstanding farm-to-fork restaurants right outside the Conference hotel in Downtown Greenville.

This year’s conference features:

Over 50 cutting-edge, skill-building workshops (one of them’s mine!) on growing organically, pastured livestock, soils, permaculture, food, policy and more! Plus, full tracks devoted to beginning farmers, helping your farm business thrive, and a very cool ‘You Make It – Outdoors and Hands-on’ track!

Outstanding pre-conference intensives from the experts in organic certification, organic production, orchard health, food safety, mushrooms, bees, permaculture and more!

Not-to-be-missed pre-conference bus tours to some of the most beautiful and successful sustainable farms and gardens in the Upstate!

The legendary Local Foods Feast on Friday, Oct. 26 at 6:30 PM! Be inspired by keynote, Debra Eschmeyer, co-founder of Food Corps.  This magical meal made with only the best in-season, sustainably grown ingredients supplied by local farms is sold out. I hope you already registered and got your ticket!

PLUS – Networking, Seed Exchange and Exhibit Hall, CFSA’s Annual Sustainable Ag. Awards and Amazing Local Food!

Don’t miss out on the food and farming event of the year! Register now!   http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org/sac-register/

My workshop will cover garlic planting, harvest, curing, storing and the selection of planting stock.  As well as hardneck and softneck bulb garlic, we will cover “byproduct crops” such as garlic scallions and scapes, which are ready early in the year when new crops are at a premium. You’ll get the chance for an advance discussion of one of the chapters in my book, and to ask questions and share your experience with this tasty crop.

My book, Sustainable Market Farming, and its chapter on garlic, won’t be published in time for the conference, but I will have postcards and pre-publication fliers which offer a discount for pre-orders.