VEG: Time to see what's up with the garlic

written by Yvonne

NOTE: We now have quite a following on TY VeggiePatch. Some followers are only interested in the bees while others are only interested in the garden. Henceforth, we will start the title of each post with either "BEES" or "VEG" to distinguish one type of post from the other so you can read only that to which you are interested

We spotted our first garlic scape. Our research shows that not all garlic produce scapes. We thought we had a non-scape producing kind until this one showed up.

Scape with dog.

Two farming friends said that once the garlic falls over, it's time to harvest. We weren't going to pull them up until July but decided to pull just the ones that have fallen.

First, I wanted to make sure there was actually a blub under ground so I dug away some dirt and....

sure enough, bulbs have formed!

The roots on the garlics were very long and very strong but we managed to get them out. Now the garlic will hang to dry for a while so we can use them later in the summer. The aroma was SO strong and wonderful, it gave me a hankering for some Italian food.

Now that it's full blown summer, we will be facing any number of garden pests. As we continued working on this week's harvest, we noticed something under the ginormous squash leaves. Good grief! What kind of pest is this? (Can you see it? It's the brown spot just to the right of center.)

Me thinks the pest is becoming clearer now.

OLIVE! Seriously folks, we did not put her here to try and win a photo contest. I was busy pulling garlic and Tom kept saying, "Oh my gosh! Look at Olive under the squah plants! Look Yvonne, she's so cute! Really, you gotta look, Yvonne! Yvonne, look seriously!"  I kinda blew him off thinking, 'Yeah, yeah, the dog is adorable but it's frickin' hot out here and I just want to get this harvest done and take a shower.'  He went to take her picture and I finally looked. Oh my gosh, she's so cute!!!!!

Here is the first harvest of Royal Burgundy beans. (This picture kinda makes them look like worms.) They are eggplant purple on the outside. But on the inside....

they are as green as green can be! AND what's even more interesting is that they turn 'regular' green-bean color when you cook them. FUN! We ate this batch with more potatoes we pulled from the garden.

Here is the beginnings of a cucumber. This year, I hope to be able to grow a decent amount. Everyone we know who gardens has cucumbers coming out of their ears but for some reason, bugs get to ours before I can get a good harvest.

These are the Barlotto beans. For this type of bean, you wait until the pod gets really big then pop out the bean inside. We knew they were a speckled variety but had no idea that the pod would be speckled as well.

And here are the beginnings of the red okra. Wonder if the insides will be green in the same way the Royal Burgundy beans were purple outside and green inside? Stay tuned to find out.