Garlic Flavoured Dog

Ive pulled all the garlic today. It was maybe not quite as ready as i would have liked, but there was evidence of what could be white rot starting to set in, so better to get them out and dried.

the evidence for white rot are the fungal mycelliae on the bulbs, and the blackening of parts of the necks. Some of the bulbs, perhaps the worst affected, are small. One of the larger bulbs i sacrificed to examine it internally. As can be seen from the picture of the cloves though, the rot doesnt seem to have had time to penetrate into the bulbs

the garlic is now all hung in the garage to cure. What a wonderfull smell there is in there!

Elsewhere on the plot, most things are doing ok. Sam, thinking he was helping me with the weeding, kindly and very selectively pulled out all but about two of the parsnips, so thats the end of them. First time ever that i had got them to grow for me as well. He also strategically raked over a third of a row of carrot seedlings and half the cauliflowers, and also removed a whole side of my defensive marigold ring. What marigolds remain however are blooming and smell fantastic. Tomatoes are flowering and fruiting, softfruits are forming and being rapidly removed by the birds, pea pods are forming... i just need to somehow stop Sam from removing any more, and to stop the dog from running all over the plots and bouncing through the potato jungle. Oddly, this dog likes garlic! he kept pinching them as i layed them out, and even now has a bulb in his bed that he chews on.

The one courgette plant i have also seems to be doing very well. Ive never done these before, but then a lot of things in the garden this year ive never tried before

the main bed isnt too bad, but the lettuce are a bit yellow. Ive put some growmore down tonight. The spring cabbage sprung and is now at trifid level, we simply couldnt eat enough of it, so most will go in the compost. I have no idea if the sprout seeds germinated as they are burried under a wall of weeds. The calabrese seedlings raised in the greenhouse are doing well though, as are the butternut squash which i half hoped would only give me a couple of seedlings (all eight germinated)