Weeding and Scape Picking

It felt like my sleeping bag should be out in the garlic field during weeding season, but now that we feel a little more caught up with weeding, we are shifting gears to picking scapes and starting pickling!

There are likely different opinions about cutting scapes vs pulling scapes. The truth is, you will get more length if you carefully pull straight up, which is a benefit for pickling, but we have found that the integrity of the plant is compromised and can flip over. Does this adversely affect the plant? Maybe not, but the poor looking, droopy garlic plant gets my sympathy, and so we either cut or snap our scapes. A load of them were fed to our pigs today! Healthy dewormer!

We are still feeding our garlic compost tea, and the garlic is loving it! Lady bugs are busy, earthworms are all over, mushrooms grow at the base of garlic plants (a healthy sign) and we are happy to have mulched garlic that is enjoying some cooler soil temperatures during the hotter part of summer. We have enjoyed some beautiful timely rains (was super dry in the spring, and thanks to the mulch, the ground didn’t dry out…we JUST were starting to water late June when the sky opened up finally!) May and June combined were about 1″ moisture, and since June 24th, we have had 4.5″ of rain spread out. I feel sorry for most of northern SK, AB who have been inundated with rain and little sunshine.

Orders have been steadily coming in, and several gourmet varieties are getting low in availability, and some sold out already. Once the garlic is harvested and curing started, orders will be sent out–the first week of September hopefully!

Thank you for your support of our small family farm!