busy busy, digging elephant garlic and garden update

Ok first off let me say we are fine. Our farm our home etc. has not flooded. I appreciate the emails from you guys asking if we are ok. Luckily we are good. We are in standing water like I guess every other person in  a large part of Texas but no serious flooding at our farm. I am posting this here so I could answer every one at once sorta.... I am so pinched for time, my email box is full but its going to have to wait. :O)  My post are going to be a bit hit or miss for a bit. :O)

I am going to do a long but fast post so excuse the typos okie dokie. I have more roman shades to make :O). The garden needs attention now and I am starting to harvest some things. Just got back from Arkansas. My best bud and I had a super time and giggled so hard a few times we were in tears. Its rare to meet another person that you click with in every area. Your two peas in a pod. I feel very lucky indeed to have such a good friend.  We drove on a road that was .....well there are no words for it and it will always be one of those things we look back on and say remember....... LOL..... then we had to put my Subaru in XMODE to get down one spot (xmode the car can take extremely steep decline ).. whew... 

Its funny now but it so wasn't while we were on it! 

Today I dug some of my elephant garlic as I was worried it was rotting. I knew it was getting close to time to harvest but with all the water I was worried it couldn't go much longer. It looks good, a lot of its nice and big too! I left some in the ground if the tops looked like it could take some more time to grow. I decided to use my little greenhouse, the little green shelves you see that have a cover as drying racks! I always read to not wash your garlic or onions when you pull them. To knock the loose dirt off and then let them dry like that. Well this year since I am digging in some serious mud there was a ton of it stuck to them. I got off as much as I could without bruising that fine outer layer that is papery when they are cured. As they dry I am sure a bit more will fall off them if I brush them gently.  Since we are at nearly 100% humidity right now every day and have been with all this non stop rain I hope they will cure ok. I have them inside the garage.

 Some looked like the below ones, more like onions than garlic LOL.. but the tops were just gone on these so I dug them and the stalks were starting to rot in places. They will be edible I am quite sure so oh well they don't have quite the size or the pronounced individual looking cloves.

 Below are the little bulbettes LOL that is what I call them anyway. I have no idea what the right name is for them..... They are on elephant garlic when you dig it.. Last year I just broke them off and stuck them right back in the ground. This year I am not doing that as I am hoping it will dry out some and then I will put them back in the ground.  I am afraid they will rot if I stick them back in now if we continue to stay this wet.

 Not knowing if they would do anything ... the garlic you see below in with the raspberry plants (I have yet to get dug up and moved)  are those little bulbettes from last year! When it first started coming up I thought I didn't plant garlic there how did all this elephant garlic get here LOL... Ya the brain at 50 tries to play tricks on you rofl rofl.. I then finallllly remembered I had stuck all the bulbettes off my elephant garlic last year where these were all coming up.  I have not dug any of these yet. The tops look a lot better on these so they can stay in the ground longer. It maybe too that is the very reason they are not ready to dig. Because they grew from tiny bulbettes instead of large cloves of elephant garlic. I am curious to see what I get.

some of my Zuch plants look like this 

 Some look like this. Since I garden in raised beds my garden is managing pretty good I guess really. I know some people who have totally lost everything. Their garden is under water literally and gone. I hate that for them.

I am just starting to get some off my plants now. the big striped one is from Franchi Italian seeds ( I am VERY impressed with every seed I bought from them and I will be a customer of theirs from now on, ya'll might want to check them out) (I am not affiliated in anyway at all with them just a happy customer) the seed quality was excellent, the germination rate was top notch and the plants are some of my first to put on) the yellow Zucchini is from Baker Creek / golden zucchini. Don't remember who the green came from its just your regular green Zuch.

Because we have stayed so cool so long (totally not like here) and because we are swimming in water my onions have had yet another hurdle to over come. Yall know they had a super rough start during the winter as well. So really over all I feel like they are looking pretty good given what all they have been through. I decided to plant some of my trailing squash in the row even though they were not ready to pull.  Usually by now my onions are out and I have my row back for squash or what ever. I hoped they would grow around the squash and they have!

 Yes some of the tops are rotting but the bulb feel firm still. I am watching them close and will be pulling them very soon. Just so much water.

 If you enlarge the photos you can see I have some real nice sized onions under that squash plant lol

red onions are not doing well. I put them in two spots and neither group is doing a whole lot.  But they will be edible. 

Cool temps and so much rain, my peppers look pretty bad. None of them look to good. But I am hopeful that as soon as it dries out some which I think surely it will we are at June. Plus its starting to warm up now. I think they will rebound. Keeping fingers crossed.

Cucumbers again slow to get going but they are getting a nice foot hold now. I have two other trellis of these this is the nicest looking of course LOL. Didn't take a pic of the itty bitty ones lol

  

 Eggplants seem to like all this rain and no sun and cooler temps. Which is odd because that is all backwards of what I thought they liked LOL

                                   Some happy swiss chard.

The tomatoes are struggling bad. I have some that look like the first photo (not many over all).. and then I have a lot that look like the second photo. They are gone will have to replant. See if that works out. They simply haven't been able to handle the vast amount of water.

 All four of my Fuyu Persimmon Trees are doing super good! I was so very worried for them. Being they were bareroot when I put them in last fall and they have just been in water non stop since! But they all leafed out and are growing! The two I started from seed are still in pots and are doing great too!

Looks to be a bumper crop of blackberries! They are just starting to get ripe now. I am planning to try  my hand at blackberry wine this year :O)