Lilac Day & Garden Tasks

I hope that everyone had a wonderful and beautiful Mother's Day. I was not able to be with my mom, but spent the day doing a few gardening tasks and visiting Arnold Arboretum for their annual Lilac Sunday festival. It was very impressive, and although some of the lilac bushes had not yet fully bloomed, the air was filled with their fresh scent. Have you ever seen white lilacs?

Weekend Garden Tasks

• sewed second succession of carrots (Finger & Short 'n Sweet)
• thinned red onion plants
• sewed first succession of Black-seeded Blue Lake Snap Pole Bean seeds (which I saved from last year's crop).
  

Sprouting peas

Sugar Snap Peas are sprouting!

So far about 14/18 seeds planted have broken through the soil. Planted on 4/3, they took exactly two weeks to sprout.

On Sunday I planted the following:
Lettuce - Boston (plants)
Lettuce - Salad Bowl (plants)
Onion - Red (plants) - total experiment; I am not really sure what to do with them
Marigold - Crackerjack (seed) - seeds were free, but I worry that this variety will be too big
Carrot - Short n' Sweet (seed) - half of one square
Carrot - Little Finger (seed) - half of one square
Strawberry - June-bearing (plant) - I couldn't resist increasing my changes for strawberries this year

Earlier in the week I planted a thyme and rosemary bush. I already experienced the convenience of having the herbs outside my door. While grilling Sunday night I was able to add some fresh thyme to my basket of onions, potatoes and peppers. Yum!

Here are some updated box shots - now that there something growing in each one.

Box 1
(Currently growing: marigold, thyme, rosemary)

Box 2
(Currently growing: marigold, sugar snap pea, strawberry, lettuce, carrot)

Box 3
(Currently growing: marigold, lavender, red onion)

Clean Garlic

I am back...and I finally got around to cleaning my cured garlic!! I harvested it back in mid-July, so it had been curing for a good month! Since I used some of the garlic heads/cloves immediately, I now have 11 nice looking heads for storage, which I hope will keep into the winter.

Organic German White Garlic, hardneck

A while back I saw this article on thekitchn.com about onion storage and vegetable keepers. I thought these three bags were great, as I was trying to think about what I would do with all the garlic and potatoes I was going to get from my garden! However, time passed and they stayed on my "wish list." Fast forward a few weeks when I had to go to Crate & Barrel to get a wedding shower gift for a friend. I was just going to get her the kitchen composter that she registered for but next to the composter on display were...the storage bags! I had forgotten that Crate & Barrel carried the garlic & potato bags! So, I decided to get one of each for the bride-to-be...and one of each for me!!

my new storage bags!

cute images on the bags