Category: Flowers

Preparing Garlic for Storage

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Cleaned softneck garlic and strawflowers

This morning, I cleaned my garlic and prepared it for storage. As usual, I made a braid from the Transylvania softneck garlic, but this time, I added strawflowers for decoration.

All braided!

It is my first time growing strawflowers in my garden plot, and I am growing them specifically for this purpose. They just started to bloom, so there will be many more flowers in the next weeks and months. I suspect the final garlic braid will look much more colorful than this first version as I will be adding more flowers.

Left to right: Final braid hanging in the pantry, just braided frontal view, back view

I also cleaned the Red Russian hardneck garlic. I will leave the stems a bit longer for another couple of weeks before I cut them short. I just want to be sure they are completely dry. Those will then be stored in an open crock in the pantry and will be used up first as they do not keep as well as the softneck garlic. As usual, I saved the largest heads as seed garlic for fall planting – two heads for each type.

Hardneck garlic after cleaning

Overall, I put 2 lbs. 3 oz. of softneck garlic (17 heads) and 1 lb. 15 oz. of hardneck garlic (15 heads) into storage. One of the hardnecks may have been a softneck, but to be sure, I placed it with the hardnecks to be used up first. 36 heads were harvested overall, from 35 planted.

My German garlic storage crock
Hardneck clove. So flavorful and “juicy”. This is what happens when you selectively plant the largest cloves each fall – my garlic is getting bigger every year.

Communal Bed Update

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Walking path-side of the bed (the “naked spot” is freshly sown and will be mulched later)

Yesterday was the last cool-ish day before we are now entering a stretch of days with temperatures in the 90s and mid/upper 80s, so I decided to sort of finalize the preparations for the outside communal flower bed. I spent three hours weeding, sowing (annual & perennial wildflower mix and cosmos), transplanting, and mulching with salt marsh hay. I still have some seedlings that will go in this bed, mainly zinnias and okra.

Eastern Bluestar, a native perennial, which eventually will grow into a large bush

This year, the bed will look different. We sadly won’t have as many dahlias as last year, and we had to remove the blueberry bush as it had died (probably from overwatering, or from dog traffic …). The walking-path section of the bed is planted with Black-eyed Susans, lavender, many annuals (calendula, hibiscus, nasturtium, zinnias, cosmos, wildflower mix, sweet alyssum, celosia, okra) and a few dahlias. There also is Swiss chard, and a volunteer squash or cucumber, that I transplanted. Most of the plants are still tiny.

From front to back: hibiscus, calendula, zinnias

In the narrow center part of the bed, we planted tomatoes, hot peppers and several types of basil. The tomatoes are all cherry types, which will make it easier for the neighborhood to enjoy. There is also a healthy sage plant, anise hyssop, marigolds, and a tall yellow-flowering perennial (a donation of which I do not know the name). Towards the fence, we planted two types of climbers.

Lance-leaved coreopsis in the native perennial street-side corner

The perennials corner close to the street is looking really good. Everything came back vigorously, and the Corepsis and Bluestar are flowering. The perennials are interplanted with strawflowers and sweet alyssum, and the calendula self-sowed and will show up in patches throughout the bed.

Native perennials: New York asters, goldenrod, Coreopsis, Bluestar, creeping thyme

June Lull

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Calendula in my garden bed

Just five days until the official beginning of summer, and things have been slow in the garden. The weather has been cycling from the mid-60s to the upper 80s back to the low 60s, which has been stressing the plants, so everything seems to grow slower. Nevertheless, the plants are getting bigger, the zucchini is starting to flower, and I have my first summer flowers – self-seeding Calendula (also known as pot marigold). Those happy little flowers will bloom until the first frost.

Lettuces and kale

The lettuces have been benefiting from the cold weather. The tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and basil not so much. In fact, I lost all but one of my slicing cucumber plants. Not sure what happened there. It is going to be warm again starting in two days, with temperatures predicted to be in the mid-90s early next week. I hope the plants can tolerate those changes.

All Planted

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Siberian Iris in my garden plot

This morning, I (almost) finished planting my plot. Everything is now in the ground, except the sweet potatoes and okra (I will wait a few more days), and I still have to sow flowers and cilantro. I planted 5 cucamelon plants, 5 pickling cucumbers, 4 slicing cucumbers, 1 zucchini, 4 delicata squash and 3 butternut squash. I also planted two jalapenos, which were a gift. The Sweet Thai basil was planted in between the lettuce seedlings, and the Siam Thai basil along the border of my bed, next to the tomatoes. I also moved some calendulas to different spots in the plot, staked the tomatoes and secured the plants to the stakes with garden velcro. I harvested a handful of strawberries, yay! Usually the slugs, birds or pill bugs get there before I do.

All planted for now!
Pots, cells and trays for187 (now planted) seedlings – all washed and ready to go into storage until next spring. I have still 31 seedlings to plant.

2025 Garden Plot

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This morning, I planted my tomatoes (11 plants total, 8 varieties). I interplanted them with Italian basil (6 plants) and marigolds (5 plants). I also sowed nasturtium (Alaska Red Shades). I still have to plant the Thai basil, leeks, curcubites and flowers (strawflowers, gomphrena) as well as sow cilantro and flowers (borage, cosmos, zinnias, more nasturtium). I also harvested my two overwintered leeks. The rhubarb is still going strong (three harvests so far), the garlic looks great and the shallots are coming up as well.

Back Porch in Early May

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Radishes (and arugula; to be followed by basil and parsley)
Arugula (to be followed by ? …, perhaps more lettuce)
Asparagus and sprouting cosmos (the asparagus will die down and the flowers will take over. I will plant more cosmos and zinnias and perhaps nasturtium)
Lettuces (to be followed by Thai pepper, Thai basil and nasturtium)
Seedlings, hardening off (ready to go in the ground, but I am waiting until we have water at the garden)
Arugula

First Harvest

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Rhubarb flower – so pretty I cut them and put them in a vase

First harvest of the year! This is my new rhubarb’s third year and the plant is thriving. I cut the flowers for decoration and pulled a good number of stalks. So many more to go! I see a lot of strawberry rhubarb galettes in my near future (recipe here). After four years, I am so excited to finally grow enough rhubarb again for baking!

Preparing the Plot for Spring

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This morning, I spent a couple of hours in the garden weeding, spreading compost and replacing the hay in my plot. It is now ready for planting. For the first time in years, I have not been planting peas, which I would have done mid to late March. The last couple of years were just demoralizing with the birds getting all the peas in the end. And I don’t feel like dealing with bird netting. I might transplant my lettuce seedlings tomorrow (they have been hardening on the porch for a few days), which would be a good time as rain is in the forecast for the day after. So, currently, I have garlic, rhubarb and strawberries coming in, and a lot of calendulas, which self-sowed from last year (they can be seen right behind the timber border to the left). I will thin them once they are a little bigger and plant them in different spots around the plot and also outside the community garden.