I have been looking forward today for some time — the garlic harvest! I am pretty sure I’ll never get all of the dirt out from under my nails, as getting them out requires lots of finger-digging in order to not accidentally scrape the bulbs with the trowel. I’ve never grown garlic before so naturally I was expecting the worst. But instead I now have 11 fat Chesnok Red bulbs tied together, curing in the basement. I only wish I tripled (at least) the planting last year, and intend to get about 36 bulbs out of 4 square feet next time around. Oh well, every harvest is a lesson.

Now, the garden looks like… a ridiculous wall of green. I’m already starting to “lose” produce in it, as I discovered a fat overripe pickling cucumber when I was reaching around to find the one I knew about. Debating whether to sacrifice a green tomato to round out a new jar of pickles before these guys spoil.

And lastly, I really have to start finalizing my winter/spring garden plans — as you can see there are 7 open squares just begging to be planted this weekend. None of these are bad problems to have.

The cucumbers & tomatoes have officially outgrown me. I wanted a picture with it for scale (I’m 5′ 2″) but I’m so naturally un-photogenic/have an awkward picture face that the only one that doesn’t make me cringe is a legitimate outtake where I am trying to think through how to put up the last line on the trellis. Even so, I know deep in the winter I’m going to forget how big and bursting this garden once was, and need something to reference to get excited about the warmer months.

We did, however, get one adorable picture of our very photogenic little pup getting walked around the yard like a baby.

Picked the first cucumber – perfect size for pickling, and very convenient we had one cucumber short of two jars to pickle tonight. Pulled some immature jalapenos, Jimmy Nardello and Tolli’s sweet peppers for a jar of pickled peppers… the latter two are usually left to turn red, but we love crunchy pickled peppers so I couldn’t resist.

Garlic for sure needs to come up this week – heavy rain expected tonight, so as the weather mellows a bit and the ground dries I’ll cross my fingers and dig them up. Lastly, am starting to plan out the fall/winter garden (a few months away) and how that will affect 2012 spring/summer garden arrangement… I am still (always) learning, and now I know that digging up strawberries to plant new ones every year is totally counter-intuitive to having a strawberry patch, so will move one of the squares over with the rest to overwinter them. It seems way early to start switching gears, but as different things start to come out of their squares I have to be very strategic about what I want to be there a year from now.