Gardening

We made this for brunch or dinner a few times last summer to use up our cherry tomato bonanzas.

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toss them all into the oven with onion and oil until a bit browned, then through the food mill. https://www.qvc.com/OXO-Good-Grips-Food-Mill.product.K304979.html

relatively easy to season and simmer until good consistency, and into the freezer.

we just got done with last year’s stock.

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Shit yeah.

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Planted garlic for the first time last fall, removed the mulch yesterday and I’ve got a good amount of shoots popping up. One variety - Chesnok Red - doesn’t look like it’s doing much for shoots, maybe it’ll just be later or some little vole liked the taste.

Growing Georgian Fire, Chesnok Red and Armenian. I’m excited to have some scapes.

Planted some tulips, too, having some mixed results there (moles) and the deer ate some of what popped up. I think I put in somewhere around 60 bulbs, if I get 10 flowers I’ll be happy. I have a fenced in area I could use, to prevent the deer damage.

One other new thing - trying celery this year since @wiper raves about his. It’s looking good under my grow light!

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First year really going for it. @Rexx would be proud. 3 beds 8’ x 3’, spent a lot of time building them and filling them with high quality soil.

Pulled a shitload of radish out this week. Couple different pickles and fresh for salads. Lettuce and carrots are almost ready.

Also have cukes, bok choy, lots of tomatoes, peas, strawberries, and peppers. Plus plenty of edible flowers like borage, marigolds, and sunflowers.

Hands in the dirt everyday. Loving it.

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How fast did those go from seed to harvest?

Envelope says 28 days, I went 35 because this is America and bigger = better. They just felt too petite at 4 weeks.

I achieved nearly 100% yield, which is surprising given my lack of experience. Probably 5x’d the picture I shared. French Breakfast and Easter Egg varieties.

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Garlic’s great. We plant a ton of garlic each year at my sister in laws. Shared effort. A few hundred plants, different varieties. Just a couple of serious days of effort - planting, then harvesting. (Garlic scapes are overrated iyam: we make scape pesto or throw some in a stir-fry or somethong, as a mild garlicky thing.)

The actual garlic: I spend a messy afternoon in the kitchen peeling and schwizzing in the blender w a little olive oil. Then spoon blobs of that on foil and freeze…. Wala…a large ziplock bag of frozen awesome garlic blobs ready to use whenever you’re cooking. Still working on last years bag.

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We gave up worrying about which variety is which very quickly- we just replant the big fat cloves for the next year. It’s all garlic; ain’t quite AK v AQ or anything like that between varietals. System has worked well for several years.

That’s really impressive! I’m so pleased you’re into it. Totally agree there’s nothing better than getting your hands in the dirt. Congratulations on an excellent harvest!

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I’m sure part of it is the novelty - they’re new to me - but I’m really digging these garlic scapes. I love the crunch, I’m not even cooking them, just adding them to sandwiches, salads, mashed potatoes - I threw some in a burrito. Going to do a stir-fry this weekend. That crunch with garlic flavor and a little heat is terrific.

Harvested some broccoli and maybe for the first time in my gardening history it was completely cabbage worm free.

One other small victory - I’ve had good luck with dwarf sunflowers in the past, but every time I plant full size ones, a chipmunk goes into the garden and digs up the seeds. That didn’t happen at all this year, I’m going to get some tall beauties.

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Yes. Garlic scapes are an annual delight.

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We’ve definitely done worse. The peppers are pretty easy to grow. The tomatoes are finicky and very popular with the varmints

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Grew my first ever delicata squash this year, harvested the first one last night. Roasted it up, kid approved. I should get 8-10 good squash, maybe more, from the one plant. Love that I don’t have to take off the skin. My butternut squash has gone crazy, too.

Had a great garden this year, the garlic that I tried went really well, grew a ton of good corn, I’ve got 12 foot high sunflowers (a first for me), got 4 or 5 cantaloupe (which I don’t like but the others do), still some watermelon to get and my celery is just now reaching the point I can harvest it. Had really consistent rain this year, I rarely needed to water. Just one of my best years, wish I had spent even more time out there.

I’m going to try to put some parsnips in the ground now, see if I can harvest them in late November/December.

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@wiper been enjoying my celery! First year I ever grew any. I probably could have been harvesting individual ribs earlier, I didn’t really think of it as a cut and come again kind of plant, but that’s what I’m doing now.

I was making a sandwich the other day, and I didn’t have any spinach or greens to throw on top, so I thought I’d try the celery leaves. Way, way, wayyyyy too much celery flavor for a sandwich, but I’ve thrown them into salads.

I’m going to leave the root ball in the ground and mulch it when it starts to get cold, I live in New England, so it probably won’t work (too cold) but I read it’s a biennial so maybe I can get some extra growth out of it in next spring.

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hell yeah man :heart: this is definitely the time of year you can have almost too much celery!

the leaves having too much celery flavors is awesome lol

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