Ahead Of Myself

By the time you read this I will be probably somewhere on the empty highways of coastal Georgia. Before I could leave for this journey to Florida, I needed to harvest as many of the early varieties as possible. Here we have about three dozen Asiatic 'Asian Tempest,' the fiery hot Korean strain that is often extremely fussy to grow.

Until this season, where I have produced more 'Asian Tempest' than any other strain. They held up to early spring better than most of the occasional bolters (I lost nearly all the Turban 'Xian') and then suffered little of the fits and spasms they've had for me over the years. While they grew well, they never get large, most heads rounding about 1.75 inches in diameter.

I brought some eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, and basil to fill the blanks post harvest. As long as it rains, at least once while I am away, these should do just fine.

The beauty of planting between the standing garlic is that they act to break the constant onshore winds that tend to leave little starts like these prostrate.

The bulbing fennel beginning to, well, bulb.

The chard, which I started from old, old seed at least two and a half months ago and planted sometime in mid May, has really taken off. One plant has a stem, or is it a root sticking above ground that is easily an inch and a quarter or more in the round. I clipped all the large leaves over a week ago and already they are producing very large leaves.

In one glance, Silverskin garlic to the left, Creole garlic, fennel, cilantro, romaine, flat leaf parsley, tomatoes, and then at the farthest right Artichoke garlic. When the Artichoke comes out, if it hasn't already, there are tomatoes sitting in front of our apartment waiting to be planted.