No-Till Garden Beds By Hand With A Broadfork

You've pulled out your summer crops. Now what? It's time to prepare the beds for a fall crop, cover, or mulch before winter.

I use a broadfork and Garden Claw to gently aerate and cultivate the soil. No-till methods like this are found to enhance the productivity of the soil, and besides, tillers are jerky, smoky, heavy pieces of equipment to wield.

If needed, I start by pulling large weeds by hand. I try to not let beds get too weedy but sometimes it happens, as you can see in the sunny early-morning garlic bed pictured above.

I begin working the soil with a broadfork borrowed from City Folk's Farm Shop. I plunge the tines into the soil and gently press down on the cross bar. Then I rock the broadfork back to lift the soil gently as I pull the broadfork out. I don't turn the soil here, I just use the tines to aerate sections.

Next I quickly rotate a Garden Claw (available for purchase at City Folk's) to the right and left over the surface of the whole bed. The point of the claw is to break up large clods and loosen any smaller weeds. I keep movements gentle here so as to not compact the soil.

Before I plant seeds or transplants, I go back over the bed with a hand cultivator or rake to remove the loosened weed roots and/or smooth the soil into rows. As needed, I add compost and/or organic fertilizer to build the nutrient potential. At all times I maintain the edges of the bed, piling up loose soil back onto the center as needed.

I've seen the results of this no-till, hand-powered method at Swainway Urban Farm, where the naturally raised beds are now so loamy you can plunge your hands in the soil with almost no resistance. I love the quiet, gentle work of using hand tools to re-build my beds between seasons.

No-Till Garden Beds By Hand With A Broadfork

You've pulled out your summer crops. Now what? It's time to prepare the beds for a fall crop, cover, or mulch before winter.

I use a broadfork and Garden Claw to gently aerate and cultivate the soil. No-till methods like this are found to enhance the productivity of the soil, and besides, tillers are jerky, smoky, heavy pieces of equipment to wield.

If needed, I start by pulling large weeds by hand. I try to not let beds get too weedy but sometimes it happens, as you can see in the sunny early-morning garlic bed pictured above.

I begin working the soil with a broadfork borrowed from City Folk's Farm Shop. I plunge the tines into the soil and gently press down on the cross bar. Then I rock the broadfork back to lift the soil gently as I pull the broadfork out. I don't turn the soil here, I just use the tines to aerate sections.

Next I quickly rotate a Garden Claw (available for purchase at City Folk's) to the right and left over the surface of the whole bed. The point of the claw is to break up large clods and loosen any smaller weeds. I keep movements gentle here so as to not compact the soil.

Before I plant seeds or transplants, I go back over the bed with a hand cultivator or rake to remove the loosened weed roots and/or smooth the soil into rows. As needed, I add compost and/or organic fertilizer to build the nutrient potential. At all times I maintain the edges of the bed, piling up loose soil back onto the center as needed.

I've seen the results of this no-till, hand-powered method at Swainway Urban Farm, where the naturally raised beds are now so loamy you can plunge your hands in the soil with almost no resistance. I love the quiet, gentle work of using hand tools to re-build my beds between seasons.

2014 Garlic Harvest, Curing and Storage

What's the big mess? Just the 2014 garlic harvest in action. We harvested over 100 heads of garlic for ourselves, gifts, and sharing. Here's how to cure and store garlic:

Harvesting Garlic

First, we waited until the bottom sets of leaves of the garlic turned brown. Harvest too early and the bulbs will not have reached their biggest size. Harvest too late (when all the greens are brown) and some cloves may start to sprout.

We harvest by hand by teasing away the soil around the head with a trowel and hand cultivator. Then we gently lifted the head out and knocked off any dirt. We laid the heads on the ground while we worked through the rows. We set aside any heads that were accidentally clipped with a tool or greens broken off to use fresh without curing.

Curing Garlic

Next we needed to cure the garlic to set it in a storage state. It's delicious fresh - milky, sweet, and full flavored - but will rot quickly if not cured in a dark, arid environment.

We bunched up 6-8 heads of garlic by the greens and tied them together. Then we hung them through the bottom of a paper bag for shade. We hung the whole package in the garage, which is dry and holds a moderately even temperature.

Another option, one which Joseph of Swainway Urban Farm employs, is to lay the garlic on a hardware cloth table in the hoop house covered in shade cloth. We didn't want to put shade cloth on the hoop just for garlic, hence we chose the garage method.

It's time to move garlic to storage in two to three weeks when the paper-like wrapping is tight and dry and leaves have fully dried.

Storing Garlic

Garlic stores best in a dry, dark, cool (40 degrees) location. This can be hard to achieve in a humid environment like Ohio. We choose to store in multiple locations to ensure that at least some of the harvest will last until the following spring.

We started by cutting the garlic heads from the now dried leaves and sorted it into piles by variety. Then we set aside the biggest and best heads for the seed garlic we want to replant in the fall. This goes in a paper bag stored with our other seeds in a cool, dark closet.

We put the Elephant garlic in a burlap bag to keep in the kitchen pantry. Elephant is fun to grow and use but it doesn't keep as long as other varieties so we'll use it first.

The rest of the varieties we placed in paper or burlap bags. We layered these loosely in a wooden box to store in a dry, cool closet. We'll check on the garlic often. If the garlic isn't doing well (sprouting, softening, or rotting), we'll freeze cloves or a garlic/oil paste to prolong the harvest.

2014 Garlic Harvest, Curing and Storage

What's the big mess? Just the 2014 garlic harvest in action. We harvested over 100 heads of garlic for ourselves, gifts, and sharing. Here's how to cure and store garlic:

Harvesting Garlic

First, we waited until the bottom sets of leaves of the garlic turned brown. Harvest too early and the bulbs will not have reached their biggest size. Harvest too late (when all the greens are brown) and some cloves may start to sprout.

We harvest by hand by teasing away the soil around the head with a trowel and hand cultivator. Then we gently lifted the head out and knocked off any dirt. We laid the heads on the ground while we worked through the rows. We set aside any heads that were accidentally clipped with a tool or greens broken off to use fresh without curing.

Curing Garlic

Next we needed to cure the garlic to set it in a storage state. It's delicious fresh - milky, sweet, and full flavored - but will rot quickly if not cured in a dark, arid environment.

We bunched up 6-8 heads of garlic by the greens and tied them together. Then we hung them through the bottom of a paper bag for shade. We hung the whole package in the garage, which is dry and holds a moderately even temperature.

Another option, one which Joseph of Swainway Urban Farm employs, is to lay the garlic on a hardware cloth table in the hoop house covered in shade cloth. We didn't want to put shade cloth on the hoop just for garlic, hence we chose the garage method.

It's time to move garlic to storage in two to three weeks when the paper-like wrapping is tight and dry and leaves have fully dried.

Storing Garlic

Garlic stores best in a dry, dark, cool (40 degrees) location. This can be hard to achieve in a humid environment like Ohio. We choose to store in multiple locations to ensure that at least some of the harvest will last until the following spring.

We started by cutting the garlic heads from the now dried leaves and sorted it into piles by variety. Then we set aside the biggest and best heads for the seed garlic we want to replant in the fall. This goes in a paper bag stored with our other seeds in a cool, dark closet.

We put the Elephant garlic in a burlap bag to keep in the kitchen pantry. Elephant is fun to grow and use but it doesn't keep as long as other varieties so we'll use it first.

The rest of the varieties we placed in paper or burlap bags. We layered these loosely in a wooden box to store in a dry, cool closet. We'll check on the garlic often. If the garlic isn't doing well (sprouting, softening, or rotting), we'll freeze cloves or a garlic/oil paste to prolong the harvest.

Seed Garlic Vs. Farmers' Market - Garlic Harvest 2014

In October 2013, my friend Kate and I decided to undertake a little research project. We wanted to know how organic seed garlic purchased through City Folk's Farm Shop from Seeds of Change compared to large, fully developed cloves from reputable farmers' market growers. Many garlic growers keep back their own seed stock and it stood to reason that maybe those of us who don't have seed stock could save a little cash and perpetuate locally adapted strains by buying from a farmers' market vendor.

So we planted four varieties of garlic in two different locations in the garden. They all grew well, we ate the scapes, and then as leaves faded it was time to harvest. What seed source would win?

It turns out that our paper map (which is a more detailed record than I usually keep) was missing one critical component: number of cloves planted. Wooden markers long degraded, we couldn't quite tell where one variety stopped and another began. This made comparing the harvest difficult.

We only grew Broadleaf Czech garlic from Seed Saver's Exchange. It made tiny little heads with many little cloves which means fiddly peeling work to cook with it. We won't be growing Czech again.

The Music or Elephant varieties grew similarly whether from farmers' market or Seed Saver's Exchange seed stock as far as we could tell from our incomplete documentation. Elephant is fun to grow because it produces big heads of big cloves, but it doesn't keep well so we know we won't ever rely on that variety alone.

The one obvious, undeniable conclusion was that the German Hardneck harvest from Gerry's Garden, a Clintonville Farmer's Market vendor, produced bigger heads than the Seed Saver's Exchange seed garlic. Overall, this variety was the most vigorous producer too. Our 2015 garlic plot (planted in just a few months) will be dominated by German Hardneck seed stock that we hold back from our 2014 harvest.

How did your garlic grow this year? On Thursday I'll share how we harvested and cured our 100+ heads of garlic.

PS. I'm teaching about harvesting and produce storage techniques at City Folk's Farm Shop on Thursday evening. Seats are still available!

Seed Garlic Vs. Farmers' Market - Garlic Harvest 2014

In October 2013, my friend Kate and I decided to undertake a little research project. We wanted to know how organic seed garlic purchased through City Folk's Farm Shop from Seeds of Change compared to large, fully developed cloves from reputable farmers' market growers. Many garlic growers keep back their own seed stock and it stood to reason that maybe those of us who don't have seed stock could save a little cash and perpetuate locally adapted strains by buying from a farmers' market vendor.

So we planted four varieties of garlic in two different locations in the garden. They all grew well, we ate the scapes, and then as leaves faded it was time to harvest. What seed source would win?

It turns out that our paper map (which is a more detailed record than I usually keep) was missing one critical component: number of cloves planted. Wooden markers long degraded, we couldn't quite tell where one variety stopped and another began. This made comparing the harvest difficult.

We only grew Broadleaf Czech garlic from Seed Saver's Exchange. It made tiny little heads with many little cloves which means fiddly peeling work to cook with it. We won't be growing Czech again.

The Music or Elephant varieties grew similarly whether from farmers' market or Seed Saver's Exchange seed stock as far as we could tell from our incomplete documentation. Elephant is fun to grow because it produces big heads of big cloves, but it doesn't keep well so we know we won't ever rely on that variety alone.

The one obvious, undeniable conclusion was that the German Hardneck harvest from Gerry's Garden, a Clintonville Farmer's Market vendor, produced bigger heads than the Seed Saver's Exchange seed garlic. Overall, this variety was the most vigorous producer too. Our 2015 garlic plot (planted in just a few months) will be dominated by German Hardneck seed stock that we hold back from our 2014 harvest.

How did your garlic grow this year? On Thursday I'll share how we harvested and cured our 100+ heads of garlic.

PS. I'm teaching about harvesting and produce storage techniques at City Folk's Farm Shop on Thursday evening. Seats are still available!

Wild Estes Park Colorado {Silent Sunday}

1) Bouldering in an Estes Park City Park  2) Face painting at Highland Farmers Market in Denver 3) Market sign at Highland Farmers Market 4) Lil collecting hail in one of three hail storms 5) Wildflowers in Estes Park (We later learned that the pink thistle is invasive.) 6) Alex throwing a snowball in Rocky Mountain National Park  7) Kite flying 8) Scene from our miniature movie inspired by the tiny wild succulent and cactus garden. 9) Elk in Rocky Mountain National Park 10) Stunning view walking into Estes Park Farmers Market 11) Spirit Hound Distillers menu 12) Lyon's Pinball arcade 13) Stream walking at Rocky Mountain National Park 14) Wild parsnip and pollinators at  Rocky Mountain National Park

There's a story behind each of these images - which do you want to read?

Wild Estes Park Colorado {Silent Sunday}

1) Bouldering in an Estes Park City Park  2) Face painting at Highland Farmers Market in Denver 3) Market sign at Highland Farmers Market 4) Lil collecting hail in one of three hail storms 5) Wildflowers in Estes Park (We later learned that the pink thistle is invasive.) 6) Alex throwing a snowball in Rocky Mountain National Park  7) Kite flying 8) Scene from our miniature movie inspired by the tiny wild succulent and cactus garden. 9) Elk in Rocky Mountain National Park 10) Stunning view walking into Estes Park Farmers Market 11) Spirit Hound Distillers menu 12) Lyon's Pinball arcade 13) Stream walking at Rocky Mountain National Park 14) Wild parsnip and pollinators at  Rocky Mountain National Park

There's a story behind each of these images - which do you want to read?