Our Vegetables

My attitude about garlic growing is considerably more casual than in previous years. So far these varieties have shown excellent progress without more than a dose of blood meal and liquid fish fertilizer. The French grey shallots have done exceedingly well with little maintenance but the occasional weeding.

In fact, since the top photo was taken, they have lodged -meaning it is near to harvest and hardly any different from the time frame of my 2012 upstate New York growing experiment. These will be cured on the porch.

Very few interesting things going on with the garlic. They are taller, lankier than my Long Island grown garlic, although these were planted from my own LI grown heads. Each variety made the transition, so far, from coastal New York to Minnesota pretty well. There has been one interesting thing -the strange appearance of dead flies on some of the leaf tips.

They seem glued in place. Has another creature done this? Saving them for later? Or has the garlic done them in? No answers, yet.

About a month and a half ago I planted potatoes. They appear to be doing exceptionally well, with each rain adding another few inches in the last three weeks. No Colorado Potato Beetles yet and I can't keep enough soil on hand to mound up!

Of course, we put tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant in two weeks back. They were planted in 14-inch wide strips tilled into the front lawn -the only place sunny enough for vegetables. So far no creature has come to eat. I'm wary of adding green beans knowing how well rabbits take to those tender seedlings. Deer have not browsed, although we do have a resident raccoon living in a big, old maple in the woods about 75 feet from the garden. So far she's only been good for digging up a single, just-planted spud and harassing Betsy by tipping over her newly planted coleus.