Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Beautiful Beach Farm Days




The weather was perfect for beach farm work this weekend. I was there Saturday morning, the sun and soil still quite warm with a balance of cool breezes. The water has been shut off, so irrigation fixtures have been removed. The basil has given up the ghost, but I love the sweet herbal tea scent the dried plants emit every time I brush them.  I pulled broccoli for transplant or compost, then prepared beds for garlic cloves, tossing weeds, stones, grubs and wireworms. 

Test plots for several varieties of garlic.

Including these -the big mistake! Well, we'll see. I suppose there are several reasons not to plant Allium vineale in one's community garden plot. Several sources complain of rampant wild garlic that is impossible to eradicate. I wish to dispute this claim. They spread by seed and cloning -should I cut the flowers off they should be quite easy to control, right? Is it possible I have introduced some wild allium disease harbored by the field grown vineale? Possible, I suppose. I wonder how large these "wild" alliums will get when they are grown as individuals in a cultivated setting. Individuals I've seen growing in woodland settings or on the West Side Highway median were often quite large. These bulbs are good eating and worth a shot in the plot.

Some broccoli florets still producing.

Broccoli that has yet to head up has been transplanted to the cauliflower bed.

What got into this basil's stem?

And snap peas producing prodigiously now. Really good, cold air sweet.


1 comment:

  1. A most curious experiment. You definitely have the bulb fever.

    ReplyDelete

If I do not respond to your comment right away, it is only because I am busy pulling out buckthorn, creeping charlie, and garlic mustard...