Fall musings

All common sense tells me to tear the remaining tomatoes out of the garden. But the absence of a first frost has left me delusional. The vigorous Italian Sweet that I laid on its side in anticipation of Hurricane Earl has enjoyed its warmth near the ground and is sending up vertical shoots all along its horizontal axis and is fruiting. When do I think these tomatoes will ripen? Why is it so hard to let go?Meanwhile, garlic bed prep is done and and one bed is planted out. I plant in a 6x8 inch grid and a four by eight foot bed takes about 96 plants. I can see from my seed garlic supply that I am going to have to limit the planting of some varieties. I have all but given up on softnecks. The only one I plant now is the mysterious Place Monge. Because I harvested early this year, I have MUCH better quality of bulb, and I expect they will store longer than my hardnecks have in the past.

Selecting Seed Garlic

As garlic planting time approaches, just a word about selecting seed garlic. The rule is that size of clove matters: the bigger the clove, the bigger the head you get next summer. But the key word here is CLOVE. Sometimes with hardneck garlics the bigger CLOVES are on the smaller heads. Porcelains, for example, will sometimes put out as many as 6 cloves per head. But the largest CLOVES are on the smaller heads with only 4 cloves.