For the beyond couple of years, the August Gardeners' Holiday that began out its existence as Squashmas has focused more on different crops. In 2015 the squash harvest, despite the fact that ample, modified into eclipsed thru the bounty of our first harvest of bush cherries (which, alas, has in no way been repeated on the grounds that). And final 12 months, our tomatoes have been the stars of the garden show.
But this year, Squashmas returns to its roots. Although our attempt to fend off squash vine borers by burying the stems of the plants in dirt was only a partial success, both plants are still producing for now, and today we enjoyed our first zucchini-based meal of the season. The dish, Linguini Aglio Olio with Zucchini, is one we found in Nava Atlas's Vegetariana and enjoy regularly during zucchini season. Basically, it's just zucchini sauteed in olive oil with lots of garlic (the recipe calls for eight cloves to three medium zukes), with a little fresh parsley thrown in until it's just wilted, all tossed with linguini and seasoned with salt, pepper, and oregano. It's a quick and simple meal that always comes out well.
This time, however, the dish had a special feature. Aside from the linguine and the olive oil, everything in it came from our garden. The zucchini, of course, but also the parsley, the oregano (gathered from our herb bed in the front yard), and even the garlic.
This is the number one 365 days we have correctly grown our very own garlic, even though now not the number one time we have tried. I'd examine somewhere that in case you virtually pull aside a head of garlic and plant the person cloves, each one will mature into a entire head of garlic, which you may harvest as soon as the green tops turn brown and dry. However, the primary time I tried this, now not an entire lot truely came up. So I did a hint more research and determined that the precise kinds to grow in cold-wintry climate areas are
So last year, we hit the farmers' market, where we found hardneck garlic for sale for what we would normally consider a ridiculous price—something like a dollar a head. However, we figured if we could manage to turn that one head into a dozen or so, we'd end up paying less than 10 cents a head, which would be a pretty good deal, even if we had to wait close to a year for it.
Now, when you grow garlic, you have to plant it in the fall, leave it in the ground all winter, and harvest it in the summer. So rather than put it into the main garden, where we'd have to work around it during our spring planting, we tucked the cloves into the dirt around the edges of our asparagus bed. I've since read that this actually isn't a good companion planting; asparagus is one of the few crops that doesn't do well next to garlic, which can transmit diseases to it and maybe disrupt its root system when harvested—which might explain why the asparagus in that bed hasn't been doing so well. So I guess next year we'll have to find another spot for it. (Perhaps we could plant it in a ring around our rosebush, as that's supposed to be a beneficial pairing.)
But if the asparagus was at all harmed by the presence of the garlic, the reverse clearly wasn't true. We got some delicious green garlic scapes this spring, and about two weeks ago, Brian went out and came in with a fistful of smallish, but perfectly firm and intact heads of garlic. Unfortunately, he had already trimmed off the stems by the time it occurred to me to check on how best to store it, and according to The Spruce, it's actually better to leave them on until they're fully dried out. But we followed the rest of the article's instructions—brushing off the dirt but not washing the heads with water, and leaving them in a cool, dry room to "cure"—so we should be able to keep it in good condition for two to four months. That is, if we don't eat it all before then.
So this year's Squashmas is really a dual celebration: our usual zucchini crop, and our first-ever crop of garlic. Here's to many more!
