Garlic in, potatoes out

Before the rain drove us inside for the afternoon, Jess and I puttered for a couple of hours. She put in four heads of garlic for next year. There were two white (regular and German) and two red (Maxican and Russian?) and, since they will likely poop out in mid-July, we tried to plan ahead and put them in a spot where we could get a late crop of beets off. 

You can see the last of the potato patch behind her--these fellows still need a couple of weeks of growth and then we'll yank them out and extend the rows the full length of the bed for next year. I did quite a lot of digging last night in a different bed and can certainly feel it this morning!

We also harvested the last of the blue caribe potatoes this afternoon as well as some feral russets. The ones that overwintered in the garden produced some big ass potatoes. The one Jessica is hold is about the size of a commercial sweet potato and, even quartered, would likely be more than you'd want on your plate. 

I was thinking of canning these big ones (since they will tricky to fit into my storage space). The tiny ones I'm going to plunk in the front yard and see what happens over the winter.

We also picked some more beans, which we need to shell tonight, right after we figure out how to get the beet seeds off the stems (these have been drying in my office for a week). While we turned potatoes into salad for dinner, I hauled out the food dryer to replicate Sherri's idea for winter smoothies.

I was surprised how quickly these dried out and also how little space they took up once I crushed them. I also pulled half the celery. The slugs made a mess of the stalks (hopefully the other half is in better shape) but the leaves (leafs?) I blanched and frozen for soup stock later on. I think I'll cider next weekend so I will have some room open up in the freezer.