Amarosia Organic Garden

The farm season begins and ends with garlic. It is the last major thing we plant in the fall and the first major thing we harvest outside in the spring.

Garlic is planted at around the same time that you plant tulips, daffodils etc and managed in a very similar way.

Holes are made, in our case using an ingenious device designed by Dave it makes 4 evenly spaced holes (6 inches apart) and marks the spot where the next row of holes should be placed (6 inches in front). It looks like a 4 pronged rake and works by a pair of people each taking a handle and pressing down on the cross bar with their foot at regular intervals. This repetitive stepping action has earned it, its pet name, the ‘Stairmaster 2008′.

Serge and Noriko work the ‘Stairmaster 2008′

Evenly spaced holes in raised beds.

You can also use a bulb drill attachment (available from Veseys) or a ‘dibber’ and make the holes one by one. The advantage of the ’stairmaster’ is not just that it makes 4 holes at a time (and spaces them evenly) but also that it does so from a standing position. It is hard on the thighs, but easy on the back.

After that the garlic bulbs are separated into cloves and the cloves are placed individually into the holes, pointy end up, then topped off with some compost.

Noriko, separating the bulbs

Rowena and Noriko planting the cloves (late October)

The prevent the garlic being ‘heaved’ out of the ground during the freeze thaw processes during the winter, we top the beds off with a layer of mulch. This can be almost anything organic, but bear in mind that anything that is loose can blow away, but anything that bonds together can form a thick mat that the garlic cannot penetrate in the spring.

In our case we put a layer of chopped leaves which do wonderful things for the soil, but are not very good at staying put, and then roll out a layer of straw on top to hold everything in place.

Dave prepares a round bale of straw ready to roll it on top of the chopped leaves (to the left)

Rowena rolls out a giant ‘toilet paper roll’ of straw

Meeka tries to help!

The benefit of using the round bales is that they are quite easy to roll out, though of course they don’t produce perfect layers and there is a lot of stopping and starting. When using the small square bales, you can either choose to pull of layers and place them onto the garlic like tiles, or to fluff them up. Fluffing the straw allows the garlic to grow through it, but also allows it to be caught by the wind and blow away. Last year we applied ’tiles’ of straw and then fluffed it in the spring when the garlic began to emerge.

In addition to preventing frost heave the mulch also prevents weeds and keeps moisture in the soil allowing the garlic to grow to a good size. Also, when the garlic is harvested, the straw (leaves etc) can be tilled in providing lots of organic matter to the soil.

In the spring you should have beds of what resembles large leeks, which can be harvested at this early stage and eaten in soups and stews as you would a leek. The flavour is garlicy but mild.

A little later ‘hard neck’ garlic will send up stems which are initially curly and tender. These can, and should, be harvested at any stage before they straighten out and produce a swollen bud. These stems or ’scapes’ are delcious made into pesto or added to soups, stirfries, or anywhere you use spring onions.

It is important to be sure that you have removed all of them because for as long as the plant is putting energy into growing a flower head it is not putting energy into the bulb. Leaving the scapes on will result in much smalled bulb size.

garlic scapes ready to harvest

Garlic scape, past its best, it should be removed anyway

Bunches of scapes. Remove the flower bud tip which can be chewy

By late summer the garlic bulbs are ready to harvest. They will start to look yellowed when the plant is no longer growing. When you are not expecting rain for a few days, carefully pull the stems and place the plants to dry on top of the mulch. Rotate after a day to allow the other side to dry too and avoid piling the garlic up or the bulbs at the bottom will not dry out.

Bring the bulbs in and dry on wire racks or hang in bunches in a dark, dry, airy location for a few weeks, or until you are ready to eat them.

1. Shell Fava beans.
2. Lightly fry garlic in butter or olive oil over a low heat.
3. Add fava beans to the pan and stir fry until the skin of the beans start to split revealing a bright green interior.
4. Serve as a side dish, on Bruschetta with fresh riccota cheese, mix into a salad or serve with chopped sweet red onions and finely sliced mint.

NOTE: You can either suck the inner bright green bean out or eat the entire bean including the outer skin for additional fibre.

Gourganes à l’ail

1. Écosser les gourganes
2. Faire sauter légèrement de l’ail dans du beure ou de l’huile d’olive sur un feu doux.
3. Ajouter les gourganes à la poêle et remuer jusqu’à ce que la pelure du haricôt fende et nous montre l’intérieur vert brillant.
4. Servir comme plat d’accompagnement, sur un Bruschetta avec du fromage riccota, mélanger dans une salade, ou servir avec des oignons rouges coupés en pièces avec de la menthe coupé finement.

Manger la pelure du haricôt pour une source supplémentaire de fibre.

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Peel away the outer layers of the garlic bulb skin, leaving the skins of the individual cloves intact.
3. Using a knife, cut off 1/4 to a 1/2 inch of the top of cloves, exposing the individual cloves of garlic.
4. Place the garlic heads in a muffin pan. Drizzle a couple teaspoons of olive oil over each head, making sure the garlic head is well coated.
5. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cloves feel soft when pressed.
6. When cool enough to handle use a cocktail fork or your fingers to pull or squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins.
7. Eat! Or spread over warm French bread, mix with mashed potato or serve with cheese over pasta

Ail au four

1. Prechauffer le four à 400°F.
2. Peler les couches extérieur de l’ail en laissant la pelure de la gousse individuelle intacte.
3. Couper le dessus du bulbe de 6 à 12mm, exposant les gousses individuelles.
4. Placer les bulbes dans une tôle. Arroser le bulbe d’huile d’olive en s’assurant que l’ail est bien recouverte.
5. Couvrir d’une feuille d’aluminium et cuire au four pendant 30-35 minutes, ou lorsque les gousses sentent molles lorqu’on les appuis.
6. Lorque refroidi suffisamment pour les manipuler, utiliser une petite fourchette ou vos doigts pour retirer la gousse de sa pelure.
7. Manger! Ou, étaler sur du pain Français, mélanger avec des patates pillées ou servir avec du fromage sur des pâtes.

This posting was supposed to be entitled something more general like ‘Activities this week’, but after looking at the photos below, this seemed like a more appropriate title!

Serge is taking a short family holiday next week so worked super hard this week to keep things on schedule for us. Here he is tearing out the weeds that had rather taken over the old spinach beds in the greenhouse.

Shawn (once again with wheelbarrow) with baby carrots ready for the Dieppe Market (see next posting for what we brought this week). Our carrots outside are still tiny so we are trying to stretch out the greenhouse carrots for as long as possible… much to the annoyance of anyone who arrives at the market after 11am!

Hayden waist deep in garlic, harvesting scapes for the market. In the foreground are pea shoots and salad greens… and not a wheelbarrow in sight!

Last week I offered my gardening students the opportunity to come out to the farm to learn about mulch and green manures. I expected maybe one or two, but ended up with 12! It was a fun couple of hours during which we

• Examined different kinds of mulch; pine needles, leaves, seaweed, straw and black plastic
• Saw some different cover crops and their residues; rye, crimson clover, mixed clovers and oats
• planted 1500 winter leeks
• mulched three beds of leeks and onions with straw
• loosened up the straw from 4 beds of garlic
• Made a batch of soil blocking mix and practised using the soil blocker
• Tried out transplanting the small soil blocks into the large ones.
• Put out the cabbage family to harden off by the greenhouses
• learned how to use inoculant

And also

• Found some HUGE worms (night crawlers)
• Saw a fox and two pheasants
• Heard Wood Frogs

  

Organic Gardeners

I hope that we can do something similar a few more times this year, perhaps focusing on a particular crop i.e. tomatoes or garlic or on a particular theme such as weeds, fertility or tools. Let us know what you think would be interesting and put in a good word with Mother Nature so that we get another fantastically gorgeous day!

I love this time of year, when the snow recedes and amidst the grey little patches of colour start to emerge. So far I have spotted

Parsley

Horseradish

Tulips

Catnip

Plus garlic, daffodils, thyme, lavender, sage and strawberry plants. The big spring melt is almost complete and the soil underneath is soft if not exactly warm. Its quite a difference from 2 weeks ago. When the spring finally arrives, it arrives fast!

Not wishing to be melodramatic (well maybe just a bit) but I feel terrible, terrible and more terrible. I think that the combination of overexerting myself (at a funny angle too) in a hot humid greenhouse, followed by walking back to the house in -25C, then warming up rapidly again probably isn’t too good for the system. I seem to recall feeling this rotten this time last year when I dug the beds out for the first greenhouse.

Anyway, a clove of raw garlic and a cup of hot sage, honey and lemon and I’m ready for bed.