Garlic and Shallot Drying

French Grey and Garlic Ready for storage

Well we having a HOT dry week. Dry in no rain, hot in that its been 33 degrees every day, with humidex in 40-43. Worse is its that temperature by 8:00am to 9:00pm with no wind, and nigh-time low drops gradually to only about 24. Sitting, doing nothing even in the shade involves sweating and physical labour outdoors is very rough.


I have been eating zucchini, harvesting straight-neck and regular, but no patty pan or 8 ball yet. In fact I got 6 in one day with  this heat. Peppers are growing while I watch and even my eggplant has jumped in size. Tomatoes are still irregular occasional sun-gold.

I clipped the tops off my garlic that was hanging out to dry and my french grey shallots have dried nicely. This is my first success in this, having moved them indoors too early last year and putting them in my cold cellar which tends to be far to high a humidity. I still have over 50 garlic plants in the ground, along with Candy, wala wala and others. These I plan on harvesting every couple weeks to make sure I find the optimal time to harvest. Growing garlic and onions is so worth while as a little goes a long way and the taste is so different from what most of the stores carry. Garlic at the farmers market is usually $5 for 3.