garlic – A Homestead of Flowing Milk & Honey! https://farmofflowingmilkandhoney.com Our homestead adventures in Central, Vriginia Mon, 05 Feb 2024 20:34:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://i0.wp.com/farmofflowingmilkandhoney.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/cropped-cow.jpg?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 garlic – A Homestead of Flowing Milk & Honey! https://farmofflowingmilkandhoney.com 32 32 195785864 Things Are About To Take Off! https://farmofflowingmilkandhoney.com/2024/02/05/things-are-about-to-take-off/ https://farmofflowingmilkandhoney.com/2024/02/05/things-are-about-to-take-off/#respond Mon, 05 Feb 2024 20:34:12 +0000 https://farmofflowingmilkandhoney.com/?p=2191 Late January and early February are some of my fav times of the year and not just for the Snow skiing:)

Raised Shallot Bed in February
Just before the nasty weeds take hold!

This is the time of the year when lots of prepping starts. We have lots of eggs in the incubator, setting to hatch out of the next 7 days, one hen that’s broody and should hatch out this week, a bunch of fun breeds of chicks coming soon, honey bees that are building up for Spring and vacant garden slots that need tending!

Whew. It’s actually sort of exhausting when I write it out like that, but today’s post is focused on the Garlic/Shallot beds. I’ve found, over the years, that the main onslaught of the mid- to late-Winter onslaught of weeds hits hard towards the end of February. Therefore, I used the last week of January (and, because of usual delays…the first week of February…) to weed out my winter plantings (primarily garlic and shallots these days) and mulch or put a weed prevention down.

The beds all already have a few weeds (the early birds, I suppose) poking through. I was able to get the raised beds weeded today and put some weed prevention down. We’ll see how well it works.

Raised Garlic Bed in Feb
Not Many Weeds….Yet!
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Garlic, Shallots, Onions and Tomato Lessons Learned https://farmofflowingmilkandhoney.com/2022/11/13/garlic-shallots-onions-and-tomato-lessons-learned/ https://farmofflowingmilkandhoney.com/2022/11/13/garlic-shallots-onions-and-tomato-lessons-learned/#respond Sun, 13 Nov 2022 18:43:31 +0000 https://farmofflowingmilkandhoney.com/?p=1702 The garlic and shallots are in the ground (about 2 weeks late, but that doesn’t seem to impact them) and I really only have the onions left. I tried the Egyptian Walking Onions last Fall – the goal being to get a set of perennial onions that we could eat on at most any time. Unfortunately, they don’t do that in my soil. I put a 2 to 3 inch layer of aged horse manure on a row and planted the onions. They came up strong and produced the normal head-sets. But, they never really put on any real size. In addition, many were actually rotting once we got to Salsa-making time. I can’t be sure if it’s the onion, my soil or the climate, but it really doesn’t matter. They don’t work for what I need. I’ll plant a few more in a different spot over the next week, just to see how they do (and they can be used for smaller onions or greens), but my goal is to try a different variety this Fall and to start some from Seed in January.

My tomato plants really put out a lot of produce this year – way more than I could eat or process (into canning recipes.) The other problem is that my plants were all gone by mid-September. Back in the day, I would have plants producing green tomatoes right up to frost. I haven’t had that out here in the Gooch yet, so I plan to tweak the process a bit. For next year, I’m going to shoot for 7 feet between stakes and reduce my plantings. I think I had something like 25 plants this year. We can probably get by with 10, but I will reduce my footprint to 20 next year – 2 grapes, 2 cherries, 4 Roma, 8 (or 10) regular. That will leave me with 4 (or 2) late plantings for early July.

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