Garden This and That.....

"What continues to astonish me about a garden is that you can walk past it in a hurry, see something wrong, stop and set it right, and emerge an hour or two later breathless, contented and wondering what on earth happened." -- Dorothy Gilman

This quote just about says it all.  There's always something that needs doing out in the garden, especially at this time of the year.  

 I've been pulling and drying all of the garlic. This is the Transylvania.

Hanging up here we have the Mexican Garlic.

 This is the China Pink, I think. Or maybe its the Ajo Rojo (I forgot which is which.)

I think these were the Extra Select.  I also picked the Elephant Garlic, it's laying out in the sun to dry.

These are the French Shallots.  They look great, I'm looking forward to learning how to cook with them.

This is the gold Swiss Chard already, I know it will get a lot bigger, but it's already big enough to start enjoying! I used a few leaves of this in tonights dinner - we had a pasta primavera which was so delicious.  I also put some of the Chinese cabbage and about 1/2 cup of the sugar snap peas in it....so good!

I sprinkled this bed in front of the potting shed with a flower mix for sunny spots and they've done very well.  I'm not quite sure what this one is, but it's about to burst out soon....I'm looking forward to finding out what it is.

Tonight I finally processed those Maiskij garlic.  I broke the cloves apart (saving about 25 for planting this fall) and covered them with olive oil.  Then I heated to about 100 degrees on the stove, set it to low and let it simmer there for a few hours.

Isn't that the prettiest pink ever?

After it cooled, I strained the olive oil and slipped the cloves out of their wrappers and put them and the oil in a jar.  This will go into the fridge to be used for the next month!  Bonus is garlic flavored oil!! Win!