garlic thyme!

now the peas 豌豆 are almost through for the year, and although they are still producing here and there, the vines are starting to yellow and wither. i spent some of the morning pulling up spent vines and watering before shuffling over to watch the final match of the world cup over at the community center with my roommates.

today was one of those days where it wasn't exactly blazing but it was hot enough that everything looked real wilted by midafternoon. while i was out there i noticed that the calendulas 暦日花 were finally blooming. i planted mine real late so the whole rest of the neighborhood was graced with them for months, and they've been blooming since before the time of california poppies 花菱草 (i had typed poopies and that's more fun, i'll admit). mine are just starting here in july, a few days after 七夕(たなばた). we are also starting to get the first of the tomatoes and should have a ripe one tomorrow.

i also happened to discover that today was the day to pull the garlic 大蒜. the tall stems had all fallen over sometime between yesterday and today telling me in no uncertain terms it was time to pull them up before they withered and disappeared. many of them are small, but some turned out to be quite large. i've never had much luck growing garlic of a decent size, so i was quite pleased to have so many plump ones.

here's my creative solutions for undersized garlic:
1. snip off green parts while the garlic is still growing or at the time of harvest. you can use this like green onions to flavor up stir fry or pasta sauce but you end up with the flavor of garlic cloves instead. if anything this seems much easier than using the cloves because you don't have to do any peeling or mincing. just snip and fry.
2. infuse undersized garlic in olive oil and use the oil whenever you want a garlic flavor. it's especially good on bread with rosemary and thyme.
3. stick it back in the ground and let it grow for another year.

i planted these guys last fall and here it is, time to start all over again. at any rate, there'll be a new batch of garlicky olive oil around here, just in time too, my old batch is all gone.


i also discovered that some of the chard has some nice seed on it, so i pulled a batch of that to dry, and checked out the blackberries while i was over in the corner of weediness. they're starting to ripen, so i need to come up with a plan to horde them for making wine, all while having no storage space to speak of. hmmmmmmm...