For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."
I just got an email this week from one of my favorite gardening suppliers about garlic preorders. If you haven't ordered seed garlic for fall, Peaceful Valley has an impressive selection of both organic and conventional garlic that you can preorder now to arrive in late September, just in time to plant. I usually save my largest bulbs when I harvest and replant those cloves, but I've been growing Music garlic for several years now (as it's super reliable and stores well) and I'm itching to try something new. So I took a look at what Peaceful Valley's offering and decided to place an order for Bogatyr (a Purple Stripe type) and Georgian Fire (a Porcelain type). Just 1 pound of each to add to the Music and Brown Tempest varieties I already grow. I know some people just plant cloves from garlic they buy at the store and call it good, but in my humble opinion, that's a lost opportunity to easily improve your garlic harvest. There are SO MANY different kinds of garlic with different flavors (mind-blowing, actually) and it makes this simple crop way more interesting to grow. Not to mention, you can really dial in the right type of garlic for your climate and cooking needs. I look for a couple things when I choose seed garlic. First, the cloves need to be BIG. None of those tiny cloves that you get from supermarket garlic that you loathe peeling. The bulbs I grow at home have just five to seven massive cloves per bulb, and they're so easy to peel by hand. Secondly, I tend to go for garlic types that store the longest. We loooove garlic in this house, and we love having homegrown garlic available through winter and spring. In fact, we just used up the last of our Music garlic last week, which we harvested last July 1st—an impressive record for our garden! (That's over 11 months in storage!) Porcelain types tend to store the longest of all the garlic types, so I'm excited to try the Georgian Fire variety (which is supposed to be one of the hottest garlics around 🔥 with a sweet and creamy finish). A Purple Stripe garlic like Bogatyr typically keeps for about six months in storage, but I couldn't resist the description: "Better have your fire extinguisher ready." It's spicy! 🌶️ Though Purple Stripes don't last as long as Porcelains, they do mature a little earlier in the summer, so I'll get my garlic fix sooner and have that side of the bed freed up for my first round of fall crops.So that's a small peek into how my mind works. 😄 If you want to know how to choose the best garlic varieties for your own garden...
I've got garlic comparison charts and break down the different types (not cultivars) of garlic you should consider before you place an order. The whole family has been knee-deep in weeds this past week, clearing the cheatgrass and foxtails from one area of our yard to make space for our new aboveground pool! And while I was pulling all those grasses, I came across this perfect rosette of miner's lettuce among some other edible weeds we've got growing right now. This is one of my favorite garden weeds—so much that I actually sow seeds in my raised bed every spring! And here it is, just growing in the dirt with zero irrigation. Can you believe it? I've also been pulling tons of mallow, storksbill, and prickly lettuce—yep, all edible, though we have so many leafy greens from the garden right now that the weeds are going straight into the compost. If you're curious about what other wild salad greens could be lurking in your yard, take a look at my guide to edible backyard weeds. P.S. Before you order seed garlic, read up on how to choose the best varieties for your climate and cooking needs. Not all garlic is the same! |
For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."