Harvesting Potatoes
It seems early to be harvesting garlic and potatoes! I guess it seems early because it is early! I just went back into last years post and saw that I harvested garlic Aug 16. (I love that new search tool!) But I may have allowed the garlic to mature more than I did this year. I'm not sure. I decided that I'm going for long term storage. I think that's what I went for last year too as my garlic lasted all winter! That's a first for me. This is what I wrote last year about timing your garlic harvest: "It depends on what your garlic goal is. The longer you wait, the larger the bulb. The danger in waiting too long is that the bulb will start to split apart into individual cloves. If an earlier harvest is done when the plant is still upright and showing a lot of green, it's because the goal is long term storage. This earlier harvest helps insure that the garlic cloves are "well-wrapped" for fall and winter feasts." So that's what I went for. The very top 1/3 of the garlic tops are brown leaving a the bottom 2/3's of the tops green. I remember that I use to wait until all the garlic tops were brown and dead. And I do remember the bulb cloves splitting apart. And my garlic made it until March if I was lucky. As you can see my garlic looks great so my timing is right for me and my use.
Once the garlic is dug, not pulled, but carefully dug out with a garden fork, they need to cure or dry before storage. Just put them in an airy, shady spot for 2-3 weeks until dry and then store.
Just harvested and ready to cure garlic. Notice green tops and Borage in the background. Here's a closeup picture of Borage, Borago officinalis, from wikipedia:
Borage is a wonderful herb. Years ago I took a medicinal herb course with a woman from Maine, Deb Soule. Her book, Roots of Healing, is a medicinal herb book that I totally trust and find invaluable to have on hand and refer to. Anyway, one of the first things we did during that workshop was explore the benefits of Borage. An annual plant that easily self sows, Borage has pretty little star shaped blue and pink flowers. Borage is one of the few true blue flowers we can grow in our gardens. I enjoy putting Borage flowers, with their cucumbery flavor, in ice tea and on salads. If I'm feeling Martha Stewardy (rarely!) I even freeze flowers in ice cubes, 1 per cube and serve in drinks. They do look pretty that way. They can also be candied and used to decorate cakes. But there's more to Borage than just looking pretty. It is said to improve the quality and taste of tomatoes if planted near them. Another reason Borage is good to have in the vegetable garden is because they attract bees. And we know that we WANT bees in our gardens as they pollinate our plants and that gives us our food. Having bees in our gardens is a good reason for not spraying insecticides in our gardens. Insecticides often cause harm to bees as well as the insects you're trying to get rid of. When I think of Borage I think of stress relief. When I took that medicinal workshop we made a Borage Flower Essence and I swore by that stuff. I used it a lot for my family and myself whenever we were feeling stress. I even gave it to my kids before school if they were nervous about going. One thing I should mention is that as Borage grows the leaves and stems become prickly so you may not want to plant them near a path where bare legs will rub up against them. Consider growing a few Borage plants in your vegetable garden.
Freshly Dug Yukon Gold Potatoes
As for potatoes. I went with the "harvest before Late Blight hits" decision. So all the plant tops are green, some still in flower. This is what I found. The Yukon Gold potatoes were plentiful and large. So it appears that the early harvest was OK. It was actually quite enjoyable! The warm soil was so much nicer to work in than the usual cold soil I experience when harvesting potatoes. So it worked out just fine harvesting them now. But I am wondering about storage. Picking them later I've never had to deal with storage during the heat of the summer. I will certainly watch this and keep you posted on how this plays out. I've got them now in a harvest crate, covered with a hand towel (to keep light out; potatoes need to be stored out of light or they turn green and you don't want to eat green potatoes) in my mud room which is on the north side of my house. My basement is too damp to put them down there. With this earlier harvesting I did notice that the Red potatoes weren't as large or as plentiful. There were many very tiny potatoes on the roots of these plants. I also noticed that I had to do a lot of digging for the red potatoes but I didn't for the gold. Not that it matters but I thought that was interesting. Something I notice when I dig up potato plants and other plants is that the soil looks a dark brown color when I dig up most garden plants. But whenever I dig up potato plants the soil, while loose, looks a lighter brown. It looks like the nutrients are just stripped from the soil. I'll have to read a bit more about this.
This year I am going to try planting a cover crop where the potatoes were. I've tried cover crops before and never have had luck with it. I hear it's so easy yet I goof it up every time. The first year, at the end of the growing season, I planted my entire garden with winter rye and I guess I let it grow too long because the roots took over and they were close to impossible to remove the following spring. It was a nightmare trying to till it up! Then one year I planted clover. I don't remember what happened but I do remember it wasn't pretty. One problem I have is that I don't normally use a machine to till the garden. And it seems that with cover cropping you need a tiller. I have a friend's tiller now so can fall back on that if I need to. So I think I'm going to give it a try in this small area, rather than the whole garden, and see if I can figure something out. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
Here's what I did with a few small potatoes tonight for dinner:
*Boiled Potatoes, Garlic, Chives, and Butter
Dig potatoes
Clean well but don't remove the skins
Cover potatoes with water and bring to boil. Put a sprig of Rosemary and a clove or 2 of garlic in the water
Boil gently until soft
Drain water, garlic, and Rosemary. Toss with minced chives and butter and enjoy!
You can also press the garlic and rub onto the potatoes if you want to.
We served this with whatever veggie is in the garden and a piece of fish. Tonight it was steamed zucchini.
Happy Gardening! Hope your gardening is bringing you lots of different, delicious, and nutritious food!
Mary
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