March in the greenhouse

lettuce and kale

onion seedlings

tiny lettuces

"Freckles" lettuce seedlings

Things are growing like crazy in the greenhouse. Lettuces, kale and onions will be ready for the first market April 5th. Maybe a couple of salad bowls, too.

Exposed garlic

On Feb. 25th

The middle row of my main garlic field had a lot of garlic that heaved out of the ground this winter. This photo was taken on Feb 25th, before I pushed them back into the soil. The heaving was caused by extreme cold (-16 degrees) and wetter than usual soil (from September flooding). On top of that we had our usual high winds after the snow melted. The largest cloves were affected the most.
Most of the cloves had roots that were still semi-attached to the soil. These ones should be fine since the garlic cloves will actually pull themselves back into the soil. Others had no roots, or the roots were totally exposed. Most of these garlics will still grow, but I expect the bulbs to be smaller.
The heaved up garlic is about 10% of the crop, so hopefully the other 90% of the harvest will still be bountiful!
My smaller field has early garlic with about 3-4" of growth that looks beautiful.

Same row March 21st

What a difference a month makes!
Look at the updated photo taken on March 21st! Almost all the garlic is back to normal.

Early Garlic on January 25th.

Between snowstorms, and right on time!

Hot Water Treatment for disease prevention at planting time

I am spending a lot of time in the bathroom these days! Specifically- soaking bags full of garlic

Warning about straw mulch, manure

Many of you remember that WeeBee Farms has some herbicide contamination of our Spring seedlings due to contaminated worm castings 2 years ago. We lost 1200 potted tomato and pepper seedlings.
Recently a few of my gardening customers have told me they have had confirmed herbicide contamination, and many more are telling me stories that lead me to believe they probably have had herbicide damage. (Garlic not coming up and tomatoes with gnarly, twisted leaves etc.) Usually they say they purchased straw from a local farm for mulch.
I have started advising my customers NOT to mulch your garlic unless you know for sure that it is not contaminated. Many farmers now use the long-lasting herbicides, and herbicides are commonly used on barley crops which are sold for straw. Newer herbicides can last 2-7 years and can remain that long in the manure of the animals that eat the crop that was treated. These herbicides are becoming common in lawn and garden products as well.
It's not too hard to test soil for contamination, but it takes about 3 weeks to find out. I now test my worm castings every Spring using tomato and pepper seeds as they are the most vulnerable to the herbicides used.
Here's an article link on how to test:
http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/how-to-test-compost-for-herbicide-contamination
Testing the actual straw would be trickier and would take more time. You could chop it up and mix it with moist soil and let it compost a bit before testing the soil. If you have some straw now, you can compost a small amount over the winter then test it before using it in the spring.

Sold Out for the Season!

Thanks to all my wonderful garlic customers. I will miss you! WeeBee Farms will be back in the Spring with plants for your vegetable gardens. We will have scapes in June and August 1st is usually the first day with garlic bulbs. Now on to planting next years' crop!

Planting time for garlic is mid-October to Thanksgiving

See our posting on How To Plant Garlic from Sept 5th.

Our Last Day selling Garlic!

Hard to believe the season is coming to an end, but alas I am selling out of garlic quickly. Tomorrow Oct 12th will probably be our last day at market. We'll have plenty of Chesnok Red and smaller amounts of Inchelium Red along with a few others and some variety bags with 5 different garlics or 8 different garlics.
We'll have a few sweet peppers to sell too. Mostly sweet green ones and a few sweet red ones. Our stand will open at 8:15 am.

Lots of Long-storing Inchelium Red Garlic for sale Sat. October 5th.

Tomorrow we'll have lots of Inchelium Red Garlic to sell. This is a sweet and milder garlic that is very versatile. It is delicious raw on crackers, in hummus, guacamole and on salads of every kind. It also is good in all types of cooking and is a classic roasting garlic that tastes smooth and sweet.

"Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers" at CHOW DOWN Food Film Festival