Still More Weird Hot Weather (Sigh); Volunteer Sunflowers and Mystery Plant Invade The Garlic Patch

Fall keeps teasing us -- or is it Summer? -- as we move from temperatures in the 40's overnight and daytime highs in the mid-60's only, to the 90's this week. Again. We even had .12 inches of cool rain two weeks ago; not much, but it seemed like a start on the winter season around here. Today we are looking at humidity right around 15%.

Fires everywhere today, but not right here in Pasadena, at least not right now. This morning the Sylmar area was hit by fires, and we watched the wind gusting as the Mayor of Los Angeles spoke on TV.

When we went to the http://www.wunderground.com/ weather map, you could see sustained winds at 25 MPH with temps in the mid-60s at the top of Kagel canyon, with lower wind speed but temps around 80-85 three or four miles out into the valley. We hear on the news about the dry desert air bunching up then expanding as it comes over the mountains, and the expansion resulting in warmer air (as in Santa Ana winds) but have never seen it so graphically on the weather map.

Tomorrow the Inaugural Pasadena Marathon is being run, and we will

pretty much have front row seats -- three times. The course loops around the city, first passing

one block to the west, going three or four miles up hill, coming by the same spot, then passing one block to our south. We will probably go down for at least a little bit and have a look-see. Since most of the roads will be closed encircling our house, we are trying to get our basic errands done today.

Can't wait to see how that goes, too, with 90F weather and two fires. [Update: 6:30 PM Mild smoke here, coming at as from three directions, but mostly moving away from Pasadena. ]

This morning we biked en famille (less one child, who is off at his mother's) to a backyard craft sale being held at the home of a colleague. Saw at least one other teacher from our school there, and one of our staff members with some excellent pottery on offer. Found some lovely local-made items for small Christmas items. Usually these sorts of things are pretty dreary, but the quality of the homemade items was high, and the company convivial. Even in the 90 degree heat it was a pleasant ride along tree-lined streets.

Garden Goings-On

Garlic is sprouting but not yet above ground. Quite a few volunteer sunflowers have come up in the eastern planter box; the watering and warm weather have them all confused. We will probably transplant them out, might even grow them in planters in my classroom. Soon as we get the first serious chill they would be done, but I want them out before they have a chance to damage the garlic crop.

Similarly, over in the south-40 [inches] that we planted in garlic some small volunteer has come up in profusion. Can't tell just yet what they are going to be. The seed-leaves could be anything from a failed salad green planting last spring to latent volunteer broccoli. Or maybe just weeds. We will watch them for a while, and if they look like something edible, will transplant them. If not, they will be simple enough (albeit annoying) to pluck out of the way of the nascent garlic.

Sometimes, like the original accidental cider, the volunteers make the best crops.

More Weird Weather; Garlic In the Ground, Waiting for Early Spring Garlic Greens (Yum!)

The weather under the Moontree has been crazy for a month: High 40's overnight one week, high 90's all day the next; 12% humidity many days.

Today, high temp 63.9 F, rain and drizzle overnight, with 80% humidity at the moment. Still, we are late enough into our traditional fall heatwave that the worst should be about over.

Garlic in the Mail, and in the Ground

In years past we have had great good luck and terrible luck with garlic. Our first crop was planted from store garlic gone sprouty, apparently planted at just the right time of year. The greens were great chopped in salad and for cooking (a very mild garlic flavored green, mmmm mmm). And the fresh, undried garlic bulbs were extraordinarily mild and flavorful too.

Spring planted garlic was a failure, bolting before producing any useful bulbs.

This year, I ordered up a pound of seed garlic from Filaree Farms, an organic seed garlic producer in central Washington. Since they have dozens of varieties I asked for a starter pack suitable for our area consisting of one hardneck variety and one softneck.

Hardneck varieties have stiffer, woody stems and cannot be braided into those beautiful garlic braids. Softnecks have floppy green stems, and dry into something like rafia -- ideal for braiding.

The starter pack came with about 40 "seeds" (garlic cloves) for a creole softneck variety called Cuban Purple and a silverskin hardneck variety called "Silver White."

Half of each crop went into rows in the south forty (forty inch wide raised bed near the south facing wall of our house, that is) and half into the similar sized planter box with a little bench built in over by the fig.

(That seat-planter was so rich and full of too-hot compost it killed most things we planted for the first six months, although the mini-pumpkins did well. Currently, the box is so rich with earthworms, it is almost as dense as our purpose built worm-bin! Since this suggests to me that the dirt is less hot now, we will give it a try. )

Eating Garlic, Saving Seeds; Trying Not to Eat the Seeds!

A few of the smallest cloves went into the horse-trough planter, near the basil. They were planted tighter than they should have been, as I plan to eat the greens and the early garlic before the bulbs have a chance to grow over-large. (I wonder if hardneck greens are edible? Hmmm. Well only one way to find out!) And this way, maybe we will have enough left in the two main plantings to eat and save seed for next year's crop.

And I can always order more from Filaree next year.

Speaking of eating the seed, I couldn't resist tasting both varieties of the seed stock. I took one or two of the smallest cloves (smaller cloves = smaller plants, so I felt less bad about the whole thing) and warmed them up in a little butter. Delicious, and each really different. Can't hardly wait for spring. (Grin.)

For now, the weather is supposed to stay cool for a while. Here's hoping that winter is here to stay. Cool weather is better for the garlic. Now I wonder where I put my broccoli seeds . . .