Last fall I planted both soft and hard neck garlic. \u00a0I really had no idea what that meant other than one can be braided, but who cares right? \u00a0Wrong. \u00a0Hard neck garlic produces about one of the best things to ever come out of my garden – scapes. \u00a0These are the flower stalk that shoots up the middle and curl over. \u00a0You just cut them off and leave the rest of the garlic to keep growing. Sorry for the blurry photo.<\/p>\n
Why are they so awesome? \u00a0You can cut them up and eat them! \u00a0I recommend the Garlic Scape Pesto<\/a> recipe from A Garden for the House. \u00a0It’s pretty insane and everyone who was here when I made it thought so too. \u00a0You can only get scapes around June (our farmer’s market had them too) so it’s a real treat.<\/p>\n Then these plants give you a second harvest with the actual garlic bulbs. \u00a0These are delicious too! \u00a0They need to be cured first for long term storage. \u00a0I thing I did a bad job with this so I will leave you to research it on your own.<\/p>\n \u00a0Shallots:<\/strong><\/p>\n This is the first year trying shallots and I am hooked. \u00a0I have always had a bad stomach that never could handle onions. \u00a0I have found recently that shallots don’t both it so much since they are lighter. \u00a0I also came across a wonderful recipe for a Basil Cream Sauce<\/a> that uses shallots too\u00a0(with Shrimp, Goat Cheese ravioli although I make my own pasta instead of using the wrappers). \u00a0We planted them in the fall at the same time as the garlic and other bulbs. \u00a0The head broke down into 3 cloves so I didn’t expect much but we ended up with a ton! \u00a0These are another thing that requires curing before storage. \u00a0You need a cool dry place which in June we didn’t have. \u00a0It was either hot and damp or cool and damp. \u00a0We used some but lost a bunch that turned mushy so we will have to figure that out for next year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Beets:<\/strong><\/p>\n I was very excited about the beet seeds we got this year. \u00a0They were chioggia beets which are red and white striped inside like a candy cane. \u00a0I had had them before from the market and were sweet and delicious. Ours grew well but they didn’t taste like anything. \u00a0I was going to try for a second fall crop by planting seeds but I thought I already have enough going on this fall. \u00a0I wish I liked beet greens so it could be a double harvest crop but they don’t do much for me.<\/p>\n Lettuce:<\/strong><\/p>\n Last year I tried growing lettuce in pots because everyone said it was really easy. \u00a0I suck at growing things in pots and got about 4 leaves. (Seriously even my mint in the pot isn’t looking too good.) So this year I carved out part of a raised bed and pick a few varieties. \u00a0There was a gourmet mix, spinach, arugula and a summer bibb. \u00a0I left the salad spinner in the photo to show you just how much we had. \u00a0That bowl can fit enough for four people. \u00a0We ate a lot of lettuce and gave it away and we still wasted a lot that went to seed. It worked out well and I think planting in garden instead of pots is the way to go. (The tall things on the right are the shallots which grew happily with the lettuce. On the left are the beets.)<\/p>\n![\"2807](\"http:\/\/ridiculousredhead.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/2807-c.jpg\")
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