Garden Chores for July

It's July and you don't know what to do.  It's hot, the spring plantings are going to seed and it's time to move on.   Here's an easy list of ideas:

1.  Fill your empty spots with fall plantings.  Beets, carrots, beans, chard, endive, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, late cabbage, cauliflower, late beets, celery, turnips, radishes, spinach and others.

2.  Dig in plenty of compost in your empty spaces.

3.  Check the number of frostless days left and plan accordingly.

4.  Mulch, mulch, mulch.  We are going into the dry part of the season, conserve all the water you can.  Mulch will keep down your weeds and lessen the amount your soil changes temperature.  Mulch will also keep ripened fruit from going bad on the ground.

5.  Get your canning equipment together.  Stage your jars, wash everything and clear your shelves for storage.

6.  Renovate your June bearing strawberry beds.

7.  Raspberries - remove 3-4 inches of shoot tips on new growth to encourage branching and cut out canes that just finished fruiting.

8.  Mulch around fruit bearing trees.

9.  Fertilize and dead head flowers to promote new blooms.

10.  Harvest herb leaves for drying before they start to bloom.

11.  Stop harvesting asparagus and rhubarb.

12.  Water at least weekly during dry spells.

13.  Keep tomatoes irrigated regularly to reduce blossom end rot.

14.  It's a good time to plant delphinium, daisies, forget-me-knots, pansies, lupines, dianthus, wall flowers, snapdragons, columbines, poppies, and evening primrose.

15.  Deadhead your roses

16.  Prune wisteria back hard.

17.  Feed all perennials, shrubs, and trees.

18.  Plant rhubarb, shallots, egyptian walking onions, and fava beans for harvest next season. (I usually wait for later due to frequent late winters here in St. Louis)

19.  Transplant strawberries that have rooted from runners.


Here's another excellent blog about what to do now:  A Way To Garden

Garlic of the Day: Silver Rose

Silver Rose Garlic is a softneck variety.  This artichoke bulb multiplies easily and is a great garlic for the garden.  One of the most attractive traits is the ease of which this garlic braids and keeps for up to 9 months making it one of the better keepers.  Silver Rose has a silver skin and rose meat.  It's a mild garlic but packs a little heat with little or no aftertaste.  Silver rose is a larger head with up to 12 cloves per head.  Rich and musky in garlickiness, yet mild in pungency.  These are a late harvest garlic and keep well into the next year.

Suppliers:
Gurney's
High Mowing Seeds
We Grow Garlic
Gormet Garlic Gardens

Perennial Vegetable Corner: Welsh Onion

Allium fistulosum also known as Welsh Onion.

Bunching onions that can be found at the grocery store are an excellent perennial vegetable for the home garden.  Growing 2 feet by 8 inches, Welsh Onion is highly edible.  Bulb, stem, and flowers pack a high onion punch when used in salads and sautes.  Easy to grow, it prefers a sunny location with light well-drained soil.  Juice is said to be used as a moth repellant.  Plants for a Future Database also lists numerous other uses including a sedative for children that can be made from this plant.

Suppliers:

Bountiful Gardens

Horizon Herbs

and many varieties at our local favorite:  Baker Creek Nursery

Resources:

Plants for a Future Database:  Allium fistulosum
Floridata
How to Grow Green Onions
Smart Gardener

Black Garlic

At the recent St. Louis Garlic Fest, we were asked numerous questions about Black Garlic.  Black Garlic is not a cultivar of garlic, it is a fermented product resulting from low heat and high humidity over many weeks.  Imagine my surprise when I picked up the most recent copy of Hobby Farms Home and there was an article on creating this elusive ingredient. (I'll have to make a more conscious effort to keep up on my reading from now on.)  Farmer Brown already makes this and has his own method.  We spend so much time on so many projects that I am not familiar with his techniques.  The Hobby Farm article outlines use of a slow cooker and a wet towel to create this balsamic-esque garlic.

There is another person who uses a modified appliance and a light bulb.  Outlined here, this is a relatively interesting method.  I googled how to do this and found a few people who just had no clue as well.  One reviewer misread an article at Black Garlic and interpreted it to say that this process occurred over high heat. That article was then quoted over and over again on other reviews.  I found a response in a chat room that stated that someone's older female Korean relative used a rice cooker to accomplish this.  Both my rice cookers auto turn off and I wouldn't trust them to the method.  I'm sure my house would burn down.  In the same chat room, a chef poo poo'd the idea of do it yourself and said to order it.  I'm not for that.  What is the fun of sustainability if I have to order something?

I even found this on Instructables, once you start combining appliances that I don't have to begin with, you've gone too far for me, but it might be worth a try for those that tinker as well as garden.

I'm intrigued, I expect Farmer Brown or Whole Foods will be getting a visit from me soon for some of this to experiment with.  I may even decide to try the crock pot method, we will see.  If you decide to try this out, let us know what you think.  If you try one of these methods, let us know how it works out for you.  I will be looking forward to your stories in about a month and a half.  I have a terrible weakness for Korean foodstuffs and love garlic as well.  Here are some links to help inspire you to new culinary heights!

Links:

Aged Black Garlic, A New Superfood?

Black Garlic Recipes

Black Garlic Noodles - Umami Blast

Black Garlic at Specialty Produce

The Health Benefits of Black Garlic

Umami Black Garlic

White Asparagus with Black Garlic Vinegrette  (someone needs to drop off a sample of this at my house)