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Friday, October 14, 2016

Fall Gardening

It's a beautiful evening today...cloudy, breezy and so green outside. I am gonna miss this million dollar view when I move out of this house.

Fall brings with itself new opportunities to garden. Cool weather crops should be in the ground by now. If you cook and use things to flavor your main dish, then plant garlic in your garden now. It doesn't take lot of space in the garden and easy to grow from bulbs. Garlic should be sown in the garden now for a summer harvest. Garlic comes in two varieties, hardneck and softneck.
Here is the difference between the two in details:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/gourmet-garlic-hardneck-vs-softneck-zbcz1404
Here are some tips to grow garlic
http://www.burpee.com/gardenadvicecenter/vegetables/garlic/garlic/article10268.html

I grew store brought garlic in spring this year. I planted garlic in April (it was cold then) and it was ready for harvest in July. Although the garlic came out good, the bulbs were very big.
Lesson learnt: Store brought varieties of garlic bulbs may not produce superior quality bulbs. Without giving garlic bulbs a cold treatment (during winter months), the bulbs may not grow big.

Unfortunately, my spinach is not germinating well in ground at this time. October 11 was the first day of frost here. I planted spinach three weeks before Oct 11. Only 2-3 seeds germinated out of 30 or so seeds that I planted. I have covered the spinach with row covers at this time to protect them from frosty nights. Cold ground may be the reason that spinach is not germinating well.

I once again planted cabbage in the garden. Remember that my cabbage wasn't a huge success in spring and summer. It not only took spring planted cabbage a long time to grow big, it was also attacked by all the pests of the world. I am taking more precautions this fall to not let this happen.

Happy fall gardening.



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