Hello garden gals and guys! Let me just say welcome to my newest followers! Fat Earth is now up to 34 faithful garden followers and that makes me SO happy!!
I’m sure you are wondering if I am just one sandwich short of a picnic based on my subject, but each word is a topic for my garden.
Let’s start with scapes. So I am learning a lot in the Maryland New Farmer Trainee program. It’s a lot of hard work, but what I am learning really can’t have a value placed on it.
Okay, so hard neck varieties of garlic produce scapes, which are flower shoots. They start out growing straight up. When they have totally curled, they can be picked.
Here I am in the garlic field harvesting scapes:
Here is the scape on the garlic plant:
Here is the scape harvested:
These things are DELICIOUS! When you pick them, if you put your finger on the end and taste the juice…of course, it’s garlic-flavored! Amazing! You can make a pesto with them, or cut them up and put them in eggs, on baked potatoes, whatever you want! Just…ummm….have some tic-tacs on hand. I ate several on the farm and when hubby came home and gave me a kiss he said “wow…you’ve been eating garlic!” But I digress.
Next topic…snakes. Let’s just get this over with. So I went to my big garden to water it and was happily walking along looking at my plants and admiring how much they’ve grown. I notice this awful SMELL like putrid dead flesh. “Maybe Lauren and Kevin put manure down in their garden,” I think to myself.
I continue walking along…in my FLIP-FLOPS…no didn’t have on my muck boots…I wanted to feel the dirt on my feet….mistake. I go to kick what I think is oh just some stick out of the way. It’s a dead snake. My brain registers this slowly and then…wait…that’s a SNAKE! I think it touched my foot! Flip flops go one way I head the other.
Oh the screams that could be heard all over Maryland I’m sure. OK…and one, JUST ONE bad word. I try to regroup…plug in my sprinkler and then give the dead snake (it got caught in the deer netting around the garden) a wide birth as I go to turn on the water. Kevin, who rents the house on the land I am farming comes out to say hello, and I tell him the deal.
He saves the day. Here he is using my garden knife to cut the nasty thing from the netting:
And here is the nasty thang (yes I said “thang”). Had to be about four feet long:
Will DivaGardener EVER go back in the garden in flip flops? I think we all know the answer to that question.
OK…on to better things. My peaches. It seems some sort of bug is getting to some of my peaches. They haven’t all been infected yet so I bought an organic spray specifically for fruit trees and I am going to give it a spray. I need everyone’s garden prayers that all will be well and we will actually eat some peaches this year!
Last topic: 130. What in the world, right? Well, while I was in the big garden (and after I recovered from the nasty snake) I counted the number of tomato plants in my garden bed. YES….130! Wow! I didn’t know I had planted that many! I think we’ll definitely have a few tomatoes this year! That number doesn’t include the eight I have growing here at home.
Well, that’s all for now garden gals and guys! Until next time….
Happy Gardening!
God was watching over you,if that snake was alive it would have bitten you.
Nature says a word to the wise WEAR BOOTS next time
and make sure the kids do too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Are you going to sell this year??
Think someone likes garlic,Think you planted enough
🙂
Nice story.
Anna
I'm lovin learning right along with you…
So, scapes are hard neck garlic shoots. Mmmm, I thought about what I would do with those, such as chop them with chives and place them in a baked potato with bacon yummmm! I love garlic.
Nice work…
I'm happy that you are happy about your followers, and I'm happy that I'm the 34th follower that came along for the ride. I love to chat and learn things from my other blogging garden friends ..Thanks for sharing.
P.S… Opps! I'm not sure what number I was Lol!.. but who cares..I'm just happy to follow. Come by and see how you can save on gas.
Welcome to Blotanical. I expected scapes to mean daylily scapes, but garlic is good. Snakes — I was terrified when I moved to SW GA because of the threat of snakes. I bought a book so I could ID the 'good' ones from the Baddies. Sandals are not good, in the garden.
Peaches — Mama always just cut away the part with the worm, saying "He's a clean little worm, he's never been anywhere but in this peach."
Vetsy–you are making me hungry! I am glad that you are enjoying my blog and I will definitely come on over to your blog after I type this!
Nell..on the flip flops…that's what I get for trying to stay cool…my boots are black and it was HOT! But next time I will just have sweaty feet. :o)
We may end up cutting those worms away because I refuse to let another year go by without eating a peach from my tree! And I love what your Mama had to say about those worms. Made me smile!
I will break out in cold sweat when I see a snake! Help! SOS!
Good luck with your peaches. So many tomato plants! Wishing you a bountiful harvest.
Autumn…you have me laughing! I wish I was as dignified as you when I see a snake. I just come undone!
Thank you for the bountiful wishes and keep those garden blog posts coming! I want to learn more about flowers from you!
Wow Diva you have been working hard! Thanks for the info on the garlic, I want to try some this coming fall. I've heard you plant it in the fall and then harvest early spring/summer. I didn't know what scapes are but now I do! Oh, but that's not the case with snakes! I definitely know what snakes are and am terrified. I grew up in an area with rattlers and am a little cuckoo when it comes to snakes. Where I live now, we always see garter and bull snakes (both non poisonous) in the yard/garden at least once or 5 times a year! I usually scream and jump for quite awhile before I put together a plan as to how to deal with it. In fact, since it is warming up here, it is time for me to start my military-style watch for them, meaning I always have shovel in hand as a weapon! Although in reality I'm too chicken to get close enough to one with a shovel! Thanks for the great post, I could relate on so many levels!
Hey there "Igarden"! :o) On the garlic, yes I have planted in the fall and then had a wonderful harvest by early summer. The garlic you see me harvesting is at an organic farm that I work on one day a week. But there's nothing like growing your own! ! I plan on planting in both of my gardens to harvest for next year!!
You had me laughing so loudly on the snake thing! I will never get close enough to hit a snake with anything–not on purpose anyway! But apparently, according to the woman that owns the land that I farm on, they have quite a few "good snakes" (those two words just don't belong together). So I guess I will be doing a lot more screaming and jumping. Listen close…you might be able to hear me even where you are!