Weird...but true!

Cloves of garlic getting tucked in.

It is so weird: It's May 18th and we are just starting to plant!  Even weirder: We're starting with garlic!  Most years we would be almost done with seeding the gardens.  This year, between the Winter-that-wouldn't-go-away and the Spring-that-wouldn't-come we've just barely started.  It took seemingly forever for the gardens to dry out and warm up, then we had a cold, rainy spell.  If you follow our Facebook page, you know last week we had a day when tractors got stuck in the field a couple of times.

And garlic!  We usually plant garlic in the Fall, but last Fall we were a little distracted by jobs, life, harvest, breeding goats, etcetera and missed our opportunity to purchase seed bulbs.  The last few seasons we had saved our own garlic to replant, but a poor harvest and disease left nothing.  Fortunately, we were able to purchase some lovely garlic through Lindenberg Seeds this Spring.  I spent an afternoon two days ago breaking up the heads into the cloves on ten pounds of garlic!  When Farmer Man finally managed to get most of the cultivation done, we were waiting for a decent day (like today), when both of us were home and we got busy!

We and our CSA members can all breath a sigh of relief now that the garlic is in.  We, personally, love garlic and the taste of naturally grown, farm fresh garlic is head-and-shoulders above the store bought stuff!  CSA members have come to love garlic scapes, too!  Have you had them?  The scapes are the flowering stems of garlic; raw, they have a lovely mild, green garlic taste.  Cooked they taste something like asparagus.  We think they are best raw and make an awesome pesto, a great addition to salads or a delightful topping on pizza or pasta.  And they are in the ground, with more rain in the forecast.

Some peas, chard, some beets, some carrots, some onions and some lettuces are also in the ground as of today.  So, a good start has been made!  Rain tomorrow, then we're going to spend a day planting potatoes.  Shortly, we'll get back to successive plantings of many of the vegetables.  Corn and many of the winter squash will go in when the soil is just a little warmer.  Beans and summer squash can go in anytime now.  In the meantime, the sun room is bursting with seedlings of tomatoes, peppers, watermelon, cantaloupe, ground cherry and tomatillos.  They will go into the ground in June - we're never in any hurry because we can easily still have frosts for the next two to three weeks.

It feels good to get a start made!  Were you working in the garden this May long weekend?