Maintenance, Mistakes, and Midsummer

I'm afraid I've been horribly remiss in my blogging duties the past few weeks - things have been busy in the garden and at my off-farm job, and the heat puts a damper on everything. It's a simple thing to block out the sensation of runnels of sweat coursing down your face, but working in the heat requires constant hydration and frequent breaks - each longer than the last as the heat saps your energy! And that's just at 9 o'clock in the morning.

But even though the hot weather makes it miserable for us, it's prime growing time for all of the summer crops in the garden. The tomatoes are making nicely; I managed to get out Sunday morning to weed around the cages (where I didn't have the chance to mulch heavily) and prune back the jungle-like growth at the bases of the plants. It was a little like a treasure hunt - as the stems came off, I caught sight of bright pops of color nestled in the greenery. There are maybe half a dozen slicers ripening as I type, but there are so many more to come! The Juliets in particular are going absolutely bonkers - I'm 5'7" and there are two plants that are at least a foot taller than me.

So far we're staying ahead of the squash bugs, our perpetual foes in the battle for the cucurbits, although the tide of war could change at any moment. After a very strange (but still delicious) start, the Zephyr squash is exhibiting the proper coloration and the 8-Balls and 1-Balls are doing well. Our new favorite dinner is zucchini "linguine" with pasta, homemade alfredo sauce, and some fresh seafood from the market. We've been using a recipe from Fast, Fresh & Green that involves brown butter and almonds, and it's pretty much to die for. It's quickly becoming our go-to cookbook for simple, quick, and tasty veggie recipies.

I planted a lot of beans and peas a little over a week ago, and just about all of them are up and going already - the only variety that failed to germinate was the Marrow Fat dry bush bean. Everything else, from the family favorite Mississippi Silver peas to the Yellow Wax beans, came up very quickly.

In the meantime, the garlic is still curing in the potting shed:

Here's the deal with the garlic. This year, it didn't yield nearly as well as I had hoped and the harsh truth is that that is partly my fault. Growing techniques that worked for the garlic on a smaller scale did not translate to this year's larger planting. Dealing with failure is a painful process, but it's a necessary one - unless we fail, we don't really learn. I could launch into an extraordinarily long-winded discussion of that process, fueled by my experiences as a designer and artist and now farmer, but it just boils down to the fact that when you fail, you suck it up, figure out what you did wrong, and figure out what you can do better next time.

It also helps if you take failure as a personal insult. I've got a plan for next year - we're going to plant about 30% less garlic, but we're (well, I'm) going to get really scientific about it. I'm talking "mad scientist" level here, y'all. Because the last thing I'm going to do is let one year's worth of mistakes keep me from figuring out how to grow the best garlic possible.

So what does all this mean for the short term? It means that although we have less garlic than we thought we would, we still have more for sale than we did last year, and that is progress. And of course, nothing beats the taste of fresh, organic garlic! The Spanish Roja has been hanging for two weeks so far and the rest for a little over a week, so we're getting close to having it cured enough to bring to market. I'll be assessing it later in the week and making a decision then - if not this weekend, we'll definitely have it for the 4th of July weekend market! Curing is important because it allows the garlic's flavor to concentrate while the bulb wrappers dry out and essentially seal the tender cloves in to protect from spoilage when stored. Not that any of this garlic is going to be stored long-term...I'm pretty sure it'll all be eaten by the end of the summer!

And speaking of summer...Happy Summer Solstice!