Garlic and Onion harvests happened yesterday, almost spur-of-the moment. I had not been watching my alliums closely, and their
maturity crept up and slapped me in the face late yesterday afternoon. Thankfully, harvesting them is easy. Getting all these tasty bulbs into a dry place to cure was more problematic than the harvest itself. Above is a picture of maybe half of our onion harvest.
This is the complete garlic harvest, minus one big mutant that I picked last week. I used my pitchfork to harvest these by inserting the tines deep in the soil, and then pulling back on the handle and popping the soil up. That done, I can just pull the bulbs out one by one, shake the dirt out of the roots, and set them in my vegetable rack to cure. Note: attempting to pull garlic directly out of the soil by the stalk without loosening the soil first is a bad idea. These 30 bulbs should last us more than half a year.
I'll pick the biggest 2 or 3 bulbs to be seed garlic for next year's crop. They will go in the ground in early October.
Here's some more red onions that I pulled yesterday.
Five onions had a bit of rot on them. I peeled off the rotten layers. These will go straight into the fridge and get used first. I had time to pick more favas. There's still more fava beans in the garden.
I'm starting to see the beginnings of potato plant yellowing, so the potato harvest will soon be upon me. I got some early spuds this weekend.
Here are some of my first tomatoes of the year. They have all now been eaten, lasting less than 18 hours since they were picked. My tomato plants have tons of green fruit on them.
We are now at the point where if we chose to do so, the garden could fully meet our food requirements. Not our taste or variety requirements, but in terms of the volume of food needed to sustain the family, we're there.
Excellent onion harvest. I just sowed our onion seed down here in the southern hemisphere and I hope we have as good a harvest as yours.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, pulling garlic without loosening the soil is not helpful! Did it once, never again.
Well done on being garden self sufficient. I'm in much the same boat, but I still buy things I can't grow well (celery - I'm looking at you) and I don't feel bad about it. Its nice enough to know I could, if I had to, survive on garden produce alone.
We have teenage sons, and while a big part of me wants to say, "Hungry? We've got peas, radishes, lettuce, and fava beans. Eat up," I know that having a happy home involves pizza, chips, and cookies right now.
DeleteI also should clarify that we have the possibility of being self sufficient for only 3 or 4 months. Mid-June through September, maybe October. For year-round self-sufficiency, I'd need to double or triple the size of my garden, buy a chest freezer or two, and focus heavily on storage crops.
I agree with you that it's nice knowing that if I had to, I could.
Beautiful onion harvest! This is my first year growing onions & I am so excited - Every day I'm out there checking for that first sign of a swelling bulb.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Good luck with your onions.
DeleteLovely onions. Mine have just started to bulb up. Once they get big enough I'll pick them instead of having to buy at the supermarket. Like you my volume is there, but I need onions! Well and some other things like avocados and lemons.
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
DeleteIdaho is a temperate place, not on a par with VA for having early growing seasons. We have a huge garden planted but are waiting for the last of the cool nights to depart. Last week it frosted heavily so that was the equivalent of throwing out a boat anchor with regard to growth. Our peas have become the province of the local deer population. We may write of the peas as a complete loss but keep them as a diversion crop. After the deer munched the tomato plants we put the cages on early and that seemed to cut down on the pilfering. I miss the easy gardening of VA, and envy your seemingly endless growth season! Kudos to you for putting out the exotic stuff and actually succeeding.
ReplyDeleteHere in well-established suburbia we don't really have to worry about deer. Rabbits are a different story. The long season is nice. I'm sorry about your peas. They are the favorite of the rabbits also...especially the sugar snaps.
DeleteDo you plant radishes a second time? Got any other radish recipes?
ReplyDeleteI did. I transplanted peppers from the greenhouse into one of the seedbeds vacated by peas, and tossed in some radish seed between the peppers. I sneak radishes into pot roasts and stir-frys mainly. I have though that thin-sliced radish au gratin might be tasty, but I haven't tried it yet..google it and you'll find some recipes.
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