Gardening Stinks!

It really does! Any gardener will tell you the title statement is indeed true. You want proof? Try smelling me after I've spent the better part of a day in the backyard.

On second thought -- don't do this at home kids.

One of the biggest challenges with a gardening blog like this one is -- how do you keep it fresh? What's new? What haven't I written about before in the past two years? Tomatoes? Scads of posts about heirloom tomatoes. Planter boxes? Been there -- done that.

But rather than blog about a specific harvest -- and a smelly one at that -- why not blog about the experience of the harvest? Every harvest is different from the last. This year -- the fabulous wife that is Venus and I grew GARLIC.


So what's the big deal then? We grew garlic last year. In fact -- we had a GREAT garlic harvest last year -- as was detailed in this very blog here.

So then? What's new? The smell and stink of garlic? If you've ever harvested 40-50 cloves of garlic -- you've come close to a stink level of 9.5. There's nothing quite like getting a whiff of some very potent stuff that's hanging and drying in the GarageMahal (it serves double-duty as a bar, TV sports hangout, and garlic dryer).

If you like the stink of garlic -- well then -- Welcome to Heaven. If you don't? The neighbors begin to chatter about the dead things you must be storing behind closed garage doors in there.

So what's new then? In a word? WORMS! The YUCK Level just blew up a few points. Venus and I were distressed -- to say the least -- after pulling up a few heads that had colonies of worms moving in and out.

And here I believed that earthworms in the soil was a GOOD thing. Not so fast there, Sherlock. They have drawbacks -- especially when your staring at one that has made a home in some of that hot Porcelain Hardneck Metechi Garlic that you've been dreaming about all winter.

Venus and I picked up the Metechi Garlic and another variety called California Early White from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply last fall after growing another variety called Inchelium Red garlic last year. Nothing against Inchelium Red. It was very good. But we wanted to try something new and different -- which is why we opted for the Metechi variety.

Believed to be native to the Republic of Georgia -- Metechi garlic has been described as one of the hottest and most pungent of garlics that you can obtain for the backyard garden. We haven't tried it yet -- because it's still drying -- but there's no doubt about that "pungent" part. Did I tell you yet that garlic reeks?

As for the California Early White? Nothing against that whatsoever. It grows well here (hence the name) and you get a lot of "bang for the buck." What does that mean? Three bulbs of Metechi seed garlic -- for example -- will set you back a good $20. But you can purchase anywhere from six to seven seed bulbs of California Early White for a cost of $5.

Did I mention we're kind of on the cheap side? Did you get that part about gin in a plastic bottle?

As for the harvest? We're halfway there. We have a good 25-30 lbs. of Metechi and California Early White drying away in the garage -- with a similar amount still sitting in the ground -- located in an adjacent planter bed.

What in the world are we going to do with all that garlic? Well -- there is a plus side in this in that it really does irritate the neighbors to no end. The stench also keeps their dog from doing "his business" on my small stretch of front lawn -- so if there's a plus to this -- there it is.

Venus and I will use much of the harvest garlic for home-canned pickles and Roasted Garlic and Heirloom Tomato Salsa -- which also serves a dual purpose as a degreaser (not really). Hot garlic should hopefully equal hot salsa. That is our hope.

As for the rest of the harvest? That will take place this weekend. At which point -- I can invite my curious neighbors to "Smell Me."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Despite his statements to the contrary -- Bill and Venus are blessed with the best neighbors that any North Natomas homeowner could ever ask for. It's the neighbors who are actually very unlucky.

Vampires Need Not Apply

Let's just say that the "Prince of Darkness," aka "Dracula," would have a hard time hanging out in the garage. Because, if the rumors about vampires and strong garlic really are true, the Prince of Darkness would be begging for the stake-through-the-heart treatment right about now.

The wife that is Venus is holding our latest harvest from the garden this year -- and this is another "first" for the both of us. Venus is holding onto the world's most pungent and hottest garlic known as INCHELIUM RED.

One visit into our GarageMahal would tell you that there's something very smelly going on inside there. To be perfectly honest, drying 40-50 fat bulbs of INCHELIUM RED garlic does result in quite the aroma.

But I like it.

What is INCHELIUM RED garlic? Hah! I'm glad you asked, because the fine folks at the website LocalHarvest tell us the following:

Hailing from the Colville Indian Reservation in Inchelium, Washington, this garlic is a large and beautiful artichoke variety. The dense bulb can have anywhere from 9-20 cloves and a thick outer bulb wrapper to protect the bulb. The flavor of the Inchelium Red is softly robust but not so strong as to be overwhelming; the flavor often sharpens in storage...

I disagree on one minor point: 49ers Coach Mike Singletary would like this garlic because, quite plainly, it "smacks you in the mouth." This is one good garlic.

We grew garlic and onions together in a couple of raised beds like you see in this photo. This is one of the cheap planter box creations utilizing wood, brackets and screws from the nearby North Natomas Home Depot. Like every planter box in the yard, the soil is a mix of planter mix, steer manure compost and other types of pelleted fertilzers.

Venus and I started with three simple heads of INCHELIUM RED garlic (I can't remember where we ordered it from). And the cloves from just those three heads of garlic resulted in 40-50 heads of garlic that we harvested just last weekend. When the tops and centers of the plants started to die back and whither away completely, we knew it was time to come out.

And what came out of ground, quite frankly, surprised us immensely. Big, fat, pungent, juicy heads of garlic pulled easily out of the ground. It looks like my frequent watering trips to this bed for additional irrigation paid off handsomely. I did experiment somewhat in my watering patterns this season, by soaking the garlic and onion beds with either a common garden hose on a slow drip, or gallons of water from a one gallon watering can.

The effort appears to have paid off quite handsomely. Some of these cloves are the size of baseballs. Still others are normal sized. We did pull a few small heads out of the ground, but that was not the norm.

What are we going to do with this wealth of garlic? Good question! Venus and I will save some of the largest heads for the always popular, and always in demand, Roasted Garlic and Heirloom Tomato Salsa canning project. Still others will go into various summer meals. We will also take great pains to save six or seven heads for next year's planting efforts.

That's right, this fall, we'll plant twice as much. Why? Because, even with 40-50 heads drying away in the GarageMahal, it's still "not enough."

March Update: Babies Move to a New Home

The heirloom tomato starter plants currently growing in the North Natomas home of Bill and Venus Bird are doing well. So well as a matter of fact that it was time to take the next step in the seed propogation effort.

Moving day had come.

I could tell because the plants that we started in this Jiffy starter tray were developing "root legs," and my fear was that if they didn't get a new home and soon, they just might walk away. Plus -- they were hitting the top of the grow lights, which is never a good sign. And those long stems that you see in abundance? That's not a good sign either.

There's a term for this -- and it's called "leggy." And this happens to a lot of indoor growers who do not have standard greenhouses. Starter plants tend to develop very weak stems when reaching for heat or a light source or both, and that's not good when you're growing tomato starter plants. Strong stems are needed for leaf growth and development. If the plant gets top heavy -- SNAP! You've just a lost a starter that you've spent a good month growing.

So, the "project" so to speak this weekend was to move the babies to a new home. This required a couple of different steps: A nice place to stretch out and work -- some new cups for the tomato and pepper starters and some good compost that the tomato and pepper plants will appreciate over the next month and a half.

Venus and I found the planter mix after a trip to the Big Box store that is Lowe's in West Sacramento, and the cups came courtesy of Farmer Fred Hoffman (Fred can just about find anything). After setting everything up in ye olde GarageMahal, including a tarp to cover the garage floor, Venus and I were ready to get to work.

In past years, we have used each Jiffy Peat Moss Pod to start three to four seeds -- or plants -- each. But separating the plants from the pod, without damaging the intertwined root systems, wasn't easy. And it was extremely messy. We usually wound up losing one or two starter plants from each pod anyway, so this year we tried something a little different:

One plant per pod.

And this made the process of transplanting pods into cups much easier. All you needed to do was scoop -- pack the dirt down -- drop in a pod with a plant -- cover with more composted soil -- label the plant and move on to the next pod.

The tomato starters, however, required a little more care than the peppers. Since the plants were so "leggy," we actually had to bury most of the stem in the compost, leaving only the top leaves exposed. This is actually a reccommended practice if you're going to start tomato plants from seed. Tomatoes are one of the few plants that will actually develop a second set of root systems resulting from a buried stem. And that, in time, will hopefully result in a stronger, thicker stem above.

As for the pepper plant starters, well, they didn't require this sort of "deep burial" treatment. All of the bell pepper plants had nicely developed stems, with good leaf structure. These were the easiest of plants to transplant into new cups.

This also happens to be the absolute worst year I've experience when it comes to actual germination rates. In previous years, tomato plants have always germinated faster -- and at better rates -- than the bell pepper counterparts. But, not this year. The bell pepper seeds gave us germination rates of nearly 100%

But the tomato seed? While some rows did better than others -- the total germination rate was probably 60%. In some cases, we had zero germination. We will not be enjoying Andrew Rahart's Jumbo Red this year, because none of the pods planted with seed germinated. The same holds true with another heirloom variety called Red Reif Heart.

But, don't feel sorry for us. We're not crying. We have more than enough started to plant five or six tomato and pepper gardens rather than just one. This includes a large variety of heirloom tomatoes and peppers. All of these plants are now sitting under a special contraption that I put together last week in the GarageMahal.

I can't take credit for inventing this PVC contraption. It sprang from the mind of an A-Type personality engineer who works for Intel and lives in the Rocklin area. But, while I could never invent something like this -- I am very good at looking at pictures or instructions and making a duplicate copy.

Which is exactly what I did!

All of these plants will remain indoors for about the next month (four weeks). By mid-April, if the weather has warmed sufficiently, I will take the next step in the "growing from seed" process and place the babies outside for what is called the "hardening off" process.

Details on that -- and more -- to come. But for now -- everthing is just dandy in North Natomas.