Raining With a Chance of Garlic

I missed the dark of the moon on Wednesday for planting my garlic since the seed garlic bulbs hadn't arrived. They did arrive on Saturday and I got them in the ground today. Four days past optimum but we do have a waxing moon which should do the trick. Going big this year with four varieties and dedicating one whole bed to just garlic. (Kettle River Giant, German Red, Chesnok Red and Inchelium Red if you're interested.) A mix of hard neck and soft to see which does best for me. Even when I only plant half as much I usually can't get it used before it dries out so I really don't why I am planting so much other than curiosity and variety.

Been really busy cleaning up the summer garden and planting the fall one. Yesterday was two more beds of various cool weather things like Savoy cabbage and red cabbage, More broccoli,Giant Japanese mustard, Romaine lettuce and Swiss chard also went in.

I tagged along with Madam's garden club on Friday to tour Joe Lamp'l's garden. He is the producer and host of Growing a Greener World on PBS and his home and garden are just a little North of here. It's very nice. All his 16 beds are made from 6x6 redwood stacked three high and are like mine 4'x8'. Makes for a nice working height and allows for very good soil depth. I'm going to make mine a little deeper but with the addition of a pressure treated 2x10 hooked into the cinder blocks with a 4x4 on the corners...should do nicely. No way I can afford to use redwood 6x6...especially since mine wouldn't be tax deductible. Since he films some his shows in his home garden his expenses are deductible. Oh well..I'll post a picture I took yesterday at Joe's....really a very pretty garden and yes I am a bit jealous of the beds.

Rain is starting to move in so I was just in time with the planting today but I did have enough time to harvest some leeks. We have a house guest for the next week or so and tonight they are getting leek and potato soup from the garden(all completely home grown except for the chicken broth).