Category: Flowers

Getting the Garlic Ready for Storage

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Cleaning the hardneck garlic

Last night, after three weeks of curing, I cleaned my garlic and prepped it for storage. For the hardnecks, I just clean off the dirt and the outermost papery skin, cut off the stems and root hairs and placed them in a ceramic crock to live in my pantry for the coming months. I will use those up first as hardnecks do not keep as well as softnecks.

Garlic haul 2026: Softneck braid and cleaned hardnecks

I also braided the softneck garlic and added a few strawflowers for decoration. The braid now hangs in my pantry. As always, I saved the two largest heads of each type (4 heads total) as seed garlic. I will plant those cloves in early November for next year’s harvest.

July Porch

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Iceland poppies

I am really enjoying my back porch this summer. (And yes, it badly needs a paint job.) I love having my tea there first thing in the morning, and a glass of wine or cool water at the end of the day, enjoying the sights and scents of the flowers and herbs.

Night porch

This year, I experimented with growing flowers that I had never grown in containers before.

Snapdragons

I had started snapdragons and Iceland poppies from seed back in February (snapdragons) and April (poppies). There is also a Poodle Skirt dahlia in the container with the snapdragons that is about to bloom. And, as always, I planted nasturtiums throughout.

Oregano

As usual, there are a lot of herbs: basil (three plants of Italian and two plants of Thai), parsley (three plants), thyme, oregano, lavender (two plants), mint and dill. One Thai pepper as well, but it seems to remain small. So, again, focusing on flowers and herbs for my summer porch seems to have been the right call. (In the spring, I grew lettuces and radishes in the large containers that now are home to the basil/thyme/Thai pepper and the poppies.)

Basil

Late June

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Calendula and garlic

I love late June in the garden. Everything is starting to take off, and typically, there are no major pest issues yet. Apart from the rabbits, rats and birds perhaps, but no mildew, blight or aphids etc.

I harvested the garlic scapes and lettuces. The rhubarb is still producing. I also harvested mint, which I hung to dry in my pantry, and I picked some flowers, herbs and seed heads to make small bouquets. The tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, cucumbers and squash are starting to flower. Everything looks fresh and green and full of promise 🙂

Cucumbers
Eggplant flower

Tomatoes (12 plants total)

Plot Update

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My tiny lavender is about to flower!

This morning, I harvested two heads of lettuce form the garden plot. The garlic scapes are coming in, and with the recent heat, things are growing nicely. I also finished weeding the communal bed, planted the last Zinnias there and mulched the entire bed with straw.

My disorderly lettuce, kale and Swiss chard patch, with shallots to the left
Calendula, lavender and sage border (with now spent grape hyacinths towards the corner) at the front of the plot

Planted!

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Planted, watered and mulched

Over the last two days, I completed almost all the planting for my plot. I transplanted my tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, squash, hot peppers, marigolds, strawflowers and dahlias, and also added an Asian eggplant seedling I had purchased from The Neighborhood Farm. My lone surviving Delicata squash was leggy and did not survive transplanting, so I will pick up two more Delicata seedlings from The Neighborhood Farm this weekend. All that’s left for now is to inter-plant everything with more marigolds, and sow nasturtium and beets. I may move the dill I had planted last week closer to the cucumbers. I also need to stake the tomatoes and refine my cucumber teepee.

Getting Ready

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Chive blossoms

Today, I spent several hours in the community garden to (finally!) finish getting the plot ready for planting. Because of a major leak, the water in the garden was turned on super late – only about a week ago – which delayed everything.

All ready to be planted!

I weeded and amended the soil with manure and city-provided compost, and I also got my first seedlings in the ground: leeks, chives, dill, snapdragons and zinnias. The flowers were inter-planted with chives. I also sowed two rows of cilantro.

Love my little lily-of-the-valley patch

Spinach

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This morning, I harvested the spinach on my back porch. We have had a couple of warm days (in the eighties), and it was starting to bolt. Tomorrow, it will be in the nineties, so time to harvest. In total, my two 12-inch containers yielded 190 grams (6.75 oz.). Not bad. It will be a nice addition to our dinner tonight.

One of the two containers has a parsley plant in the center, and I am adding nasturtium around it. In the other, I planted some tiny Iceland Mix poppy seedlings. It is my first time growing poppies. They are supposed to be difficult to transplant as their roots do not like to be disturbed. Fingers crossed.