I just received a bunch of seeds that I mail ordered from Sand Hill Preservation Center. Mostly fall greens – lettuces, endive, arugula. Also garlic top sets and pea seeds.
Today I planted a tepee of the fall peas (Alderman/ Tall Telephone). Sand Hill says that sometimes a fall crop of these works out – depending on the weather. We’ll see. My pinto beans that I planted a couple of weeks ago are growing beautifully now.
This weekend I also transplanted some lettuce, arugula and escarole seedlings I seeded several weeks ago. I will try to space these better than I did this spring and see if they will head up this fall.
I pulled up my summer radish crop today. I wonder – aren’t they supposed to have a bulb at the root end? My spring planting didn’t bulb and now neither did my summer planting. I should give up. But no! I bought some fancy heirloom Round Black Spanish radish to plant this fall. There’s always another season to try again. I’ll try to give them a spot with more sun.
Today I harvested my garlic and a few red onions. The bulbs are a bit small. From the 30 garlic cloves I planted, only nine heads. (Last September I planted 30 cloves of super market garlic.) I now have some Homestead top sets (an heirloom variety) from Sand Hill to plant this fall. Maybe this variety will grow bigger than this year’s supermarket cloves. Small but still very delicious! I tied up the onions and garlic and hung then in the garage to dry.
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The supermarket garlic was probably small because it was grown in China or some far away place in a climate different from yours. If you decide to replant them for next year (choosing the biggest cloves from the biggest bulbs), they will probably get bigger as they acclimate to your garden.
The Homestead garlic will probably also be small the first year, but get larger every year you replant it. When you start with topsets, it takes 2-3 years before you really get full sized bulbs, but overall the time it takes to acclimate to your local growing conditions is less than when you start by planting cloves.
Thanks. I have a big space in the garden I’m saved for garlic this fall. I’ll plant both the Homestead top sets and some of my biggest cloves from this year’s garlic. Sounds good.