Okanagancook

There is a whole thread on lamb ribs! [Host's note: to avoid an excessive load on our servers this topic has been split. The discussion continues here.]

The seeds take a long time to germinate, so you will need to be patient. Enjoy!

Those Martin Heirlooms look nice and big! It will be a challenge to keep the various kinds in order!

Nice patch of garlic Linda K. I actually miscalculated how much garlic I have (my DH pointed that out). I have 240 bulbs! Yes, I know it IS a lot but I grow some for my brother who doesn't have space for a veggie garden and for a couple of friends. Then you need to grow bulbs to plant for next year. Oh well, we seem to use it all. I often roast bulbs in foil then freeze for later use. I have also done some confit garlic. I don't know a lot about what to do with the scales. Any suggestions other than chopped up in salad.

Last night was grass fed tri tip steak sous vide at 122F for 35 minutes; oven roasted frites and baked okra with onions and mint. On Friday we made the four hour round trip to Vernon area to Vale Farms to get some of their wonderful meat. They have a 'meat store' where you can just pick the cuts you want rather than buying a whole half or hind. Needless we did a little 'cherry picking' of the good stuff: rib eyes, porterhouse, tri tip, flat iron and prime rib roasts along with some pet food, soup bones and ground beef.

Here are some pics of the New Zealand spinach we were talking about over in another thread. The small tops of the plant can be snipped off and eaten whole but if the stems are longer then you have to pluck of the leaves and discard the woodie stem. I have already cut mine back twice. You can hopefully see on the last picture how thick the leaves are. Please excuse my dirt filled thumb nail on the last shot. From yesterday's garlic harvest. Off to scrub it now.

I just measured and it is 5 3/4 feet tall. Here is a picture of it. The ones on the grass side get more heat so I think that's why they are taller than the others.

I don't know what is normal for your area, sorry. We have tassels now too and that is after about five weeks in the ground from three inches tall at planting.

The poly keeps the soil hot is the main thing. It is a lot harder to water because you have to aim the hose jet at the base where the opening is. I will take some pics tomorrow for illustration. My corn is about 3.5 feet high and was planted from greenhouse seedling at the end of May. Corn like warm soil, water and loads of fertilizer. Do you fertilize your garden at all?

Elephant garlic is much milder tasting and very large cloves. I guess they would be grown the same way as regular garlic. Thank you for your comments. I would encourage you to check out the website I referenced. It has everything you need to know to grow successfully. I would think you could grow some awesome garlic in Kansas! Your local farmers markets should be selling their garlic now.. Maybe buy a few kinds to see which kind you like then buy some bulbs for planting in the fall. Choose nice big bulbs with nice big cloves...kinda like onion sets. Keep them in a cool dark place with lots of ventilation around them. Cheers

Shelby, is the mulch to keep the plants moist during the hot weather? Do you ever use black poly as a ground cover? We use it for our corn and the difference in growth between no poly and poly is amazing.

Shelby, try planting some New Zealand spinach. It goes all summer long. The leaves are smaller and thicker. I will post some pics in the garden thread tomorrow.

The first picture is the uncovering of the garlic in the spring. The near bed has the mulch on and the far bed has the mulch removed. The second picture is the beds after no water for two weeks. The tops are getting quite brown. I dug down around a couple of bulbs to see how big they were and they seemed a good size so that is when we stopped watering. The third picture is one bed's worth of pulled garlic. They need to be cleaned of any soil especially around the roots. The fourth picture is the 'downed garlic'. My dear hubby had rigged up a cord strung around an aluminum hook that is used to store the snow shovel on the wall. Well, I got about 2/3's of my garlic hung when the hook bent and the loop of cord slipped of downing all my garlic. The air was pretty blue! One is not supposed to drop one's harvested garlic because then it bruises and like bananas and eggplants will be more susceptible to rot. Yes, oh, yes, the are was blue. So, I untied all the strings of garlic from the rope. Then I installed a hook that was screwed in the stud and I was back in action. The firth picture is my string of garlic. All 190 bulbs of them! They need to hang for two weeks to cure. The nutrients stored in the leaves go into the bulbs and the whole thing dries for keeping. I have fans on them to keep the air circulating and the temperature is quite warm so should be good curing conditions. The last picture is of the fresh garlic, not cured Can't seem to get the pictures turned the right way up, sorry.

I have been growing garlic for about 9 years here in the Okanagan, zone 6 to 7 I think it is. I have used this website as my reference for all things 'growing garlic': https://www.garlicfarm.ca/growing-garlic.htm. I am no expert on garlic but just enjoy the beautiful sticky cloves that I get from my garden garlic. Actually, it is quite expensive if one was to purchase it at the Farmers' market. Around 50 cents a bulb. Now, that's for really nice garlic. I started with local garlic from the farmers' market. From Galactic Farms. I call it Galactic Garlic but I think it is Russian Red. Then after discovering the above noted website I purchased several varieties to experiment with. Of course I got some of them mixed up but the one variety that worked best was the Leningrad Garlic. The cloves were quite big so they seemed to keep the best downstairs in the wine cellar. Probably only 3 or 4 cloves per bulb. So now that is all I grow along with the Galactic Garlic which seems to be a good keeper also. Last year pretty well all my cloves remained rot free and I used the last bulb in about mid January. I plant my cloves in early to mid October. They are mulched with four inches of leaves and covered with a cloth for the winter. This spring they popped up early. We have had marvellous growing conditions this year and are about three weeks ahead of normal. The scapes were taken off about five weeks ago and two weeks ago we stopped watering them. They should be left like this for two weeks to dry out. I was all ready to harvest tomorrow, the two week mark, but rain was in the forecast so I did it all today. Five forking hours of digging, cleaning and hanging up which was done twice (story to follow). It was 35 Degrees C today! I am now having a cold beer. I will post pictures in my next post...my beer is empty ! Anyone else out there growing garlic?

One of our local restaurants used to duck confit poutine which they served as an appetizer. Absolutely delicious but the portion size of enormous. I was glad that was all I ordered. Must have been a whole duck leg on it.

Seems to be a problem here too....not many dinner invitations and when they do come it's with an apology even before we taste anything. Mind you, we do live in a little village with 3,000 residents.

Well, all I know is that I need way more evidence before undertaking such change in nutrient intake. To me, the 'boring' Mediterranean way of eating has the most credibility and that's by enlarge the way we eat as much as possible.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/11686002/Why-weve-all-been-doing-the-Fast-Diet-wrong.html This is quite interesting and explains a little more but other than buying their prepackaged diet product I'm not sure of the details as mention above. The examples at the end of the article seem strange. For example day two to five should be 44% fat or 35 grams. The sample menus don't seem to be that fatty so we clearly need more details. They are in the midst of an expanded study involving more subjects. The first one of just 19 people!

FauxPas, yes I have some lovely small onions just out of the ground which would go nicely with the spuds.

Those dishes look really, really tasty. Wish we could get food like that here. Oh well, going to Vancouver in September so will have to wait until then. Love calamari too.

Ditto!

Yup, had to share those beauty pots with friends. They all gone now. Just so creamy and 'potatoie', if that is a word. But loads more plants left. No more pasta or rice for awhile as we plough those these jewels from the earth arrive.

Haul from yesterday. Love, love new potatoes.

Just got some Cornish game hens from the farmers market and think the above referenced recipe might suit those birds well. Thanks for pointing out this recipe.

Cherries are getting close to ripe up here but at the Penticton market there were local cherries but from just south of us. Soon, next week probably. Forecast is for rain on Wednesday so the helicopters will be called out for sure. Another reason they are costly.