Garlic to plant (or eat) is now for sale. Cucumbers for sale too!

Tomorrow we'll be selling 5 different garlics that are suitable for planting or eating. Chesnok Red, Inchelium Red,  Brown Tempest, Shantung Purple and German Extra Hardy.
Please ask for planting instructions if you need them, or look at our previous post on planting (10/3/12).
These garlics have been harvested from the newer field, that has not shown any evidence of garlic disease. However we do recommend hot water treatment of your garlic before planting as a precaution. ALL of our garlic is great to eat!
Caley has harvested a bunch of cucumbers from his garden and will be there selling them from about 10-1. Lemon cucumbers, Asian and "Munchers".

Saturday August 17th Market update

We will be selling several types of great eating garlic tomorrow: Inchelium Red, Dukanskij, Brown Tempest, Siberian, Shatili and Shantung Purple. There will also be a little bit of seed garlic available: German Extra Hardy and Brown Tempest if you ask for it. It won't be on display yet, and I'll have a 5 bulb limit on these.
Next week, August 24th, we'll start to sell more of the planting garlic- and will have it through September or until it sells out.
(refer to previous posts on garlic disease to differentiate seed garlic from eating garlic)

Garlic descriptions and color codes

Here are some of the recent garlic descriptions and color codes for our garlic:

•  Inchelium Red-  Softneck that is excellent for roasting.  Discovered on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington State. One of the best-tasting softneck garlics with a mild but lingering flavor. Stores til January.     RED

• Chesnok Red- Excellent-tasting hard neck garlic, originally from the Republic of Georgia. Earthy lingering flavor with a unique zesty bite. One of the best baking and cooking garlics. Will store through December.     PINK

• Shantung Purple- Extra-flavorful chinese Turban has 6-8 beautiful rose and beige cloves. Cook for a strong earthy flavor, or eat raw for a fiery heat! Stores thu Oct.  PURPLE

• German Extra Hardy- Great raw! Slice thin on crackers. An addictive garlic taste, with full flavor. Big, easy to peel cloves. For cooking put in at end of heating. Keeps to Nov.  BLUE
(Note The Blue color code was used for Dukanskij Aug 3-17)

Garlic disease report

The good news from OUR NEW GARLIC FIELD

We sent our garlic out for disease testing and the garlic from the new field has a clean bill of health so we can sell it for planting for home gardeners and use it for our own planting. Yay!!! (We will use a heat treatment to be safe). We'll sell garlic from this area in about a month.

The bad news from OUR OLD GARLIC FIELD

The bad news is that some garlic from our older field had garlic bloat nematodes which caused some rot of the bulbs. Luckily 98% looked good and is great eating garlic, but the garlic shouldn't be used for planting. Apparently the nematode larvae can live in tiny specks of soil in the roots and spread to a new area. A hot water treatment can be used to kill the nematodes.

Garlic for sale August 3rd

We will be selling garlic this coming weekend. Inchelium Red, Chesnok Red, German Extra Hardy, Malaysian and more.
This will all be garlic for eating. Planting garlic will be available in about a month.

Harvest is almost done. We had one "bad" field where the garlic looked a bit better than I thought it would. Mostly medium sized garlic, but no dreaded white mold. There was some cutworm damage, some rot, some tiny garlic, lots of spotty areas where the garlic didn't come up among other issues. The "good" field was a big success, except for one or two suspicious looking garlics which I'm sending off for disease testing. Lots of big, beautiful garlic and the digging was easy since I watered right before the rain/hail storm June 29th.

 The boxcar is filled with garlic drying

The garlic harvest "crew"

Saturday June 29th: Lots of Curlies, a few plants. Last week for curlies!

On Saturday I will be harvesting some early garlic (Inchelium Red) while my trusty helper Georgia will be at market selling garlic curlies. Come and get some scapes while we have them! They last for a LONG time in the fridge and we will have generous bags for $1.50 (or $1.25 if you bring your own bag). We'll also have some cucumber and squash plants, flower starts and a few other plants for your garden.
WeeBee Farms will not be at market in July and then will come back August 3rd with garlic bulbs for sale.

Garlic Scapes For Sale!!

We will have lots and lots of garlic "curlies" (scapes) for sale tomorrow! Come get them while we have them. They store for several weeks in the fridge in a plastic bag.

• Chop and add to cooked beans, chili, eggs, omelets, quiche, soups, stir fry, tomato sauce and veggies.

• Chop and sautee in olive oil for a minute. Serve generous amounts over pasta or veggie dishes

• Chop fine and eat raw in cold salads, potato salad, tuna or salmon salad, hummous, tabouli

• Roast on the grill whole with a little olive oil and salt 

You can use the whole thing including the blossom, maybe slicing off part of the tougher ends.

When do I harvest the garlic?

How can you tell when to harvest your garlic?

Harvest- Dig up when half of the leaves are brown, usually June 25- July 10. Shade immediately. Hang or put on ventilated shelves for 3 weeks to “cure” with stems on. They must have good air circulation and shade.

How To Store- Clip off the stems after they are cured. Store at room temperature or cooler, out of direct sunlight. Cool basements and garages can work well for storage. The bulbs need air circulation, but storing in paper bags can keep them from drying out too much. Hardnecks generally store up to 5 months. Softnecks up to 9 months.

Garlic falling down

Usually garlic doesn't fall over, unless you have gone way past harvest time. This year is an exception for me. The Turban type garlics (Tzan, Shantung purple, Thai Purple, etc) got stressed out by the weather this year. Probably the 1 degree temps in early April were too much for them since they are the earliest garlic and were pretty tall by then. When garlic is stressed by the cold, it can form strange looking bulbs or no bulbs at all, just "rounds".
The Turban garlics have very weak stems this year and most are laying flat on the ground. The very bottom leaves have yellowed or fallen off (as is normal a week before harvest time), but they are still 80% green.
 I am digging the tiny bulbs up early (the ones with the skinniest stems) because I may not be able to find them later when they become more dried up. I am also digging any that half the leaves are yellow. The rest I'm leaving to see if they will bulb up in the next few days.
The "rounds" that I get (no cloves, just one round onion shaped bulb) will be saved for re-planting in the Fall. They will produce huge garlic bulbs for next year.
Stay tuned.