The first of the garlic

Last Saturday planted my first round of garlic bulbs. I have three different varieties of garlic that are going into the ground this fall: Lorz Italian, Broadleaf Czech, and Early Purple Italian. I look forward to the summer so I can get my hands on what must be a good haul. I'm something of a fiend for garlic so this will be great. I think this weekend I will plant the second/final round of garlic. And I'm getting a hoop house built. It looks like I'll have it done just in time too as the first frost might hit sometime this weekend.

Fall housekeeping

This is the what happens when a garden bed gets away from you. The good news is that I have finally fixed that problem. At least in part anyway, I decided to let the plant bearing larger fruit to stay until it finally gives up. 

Before

The biggest grasshopper ever?

I found this bad boy this weekend while I was clearing out the old cherry tomato plants. They had finally given up the goose so I decided it was time to clean house and add some compost to get things ready for a winter run of greens and root vegetables. This fine specimen was something along the lines of 3 1/2 inches long. I have a sneaking suspicion that he might have been the culprit for plenty of my pest damaged collard greens.

Small town living

You know you are living the true small town life when the barber you go to hooks you up with some fresh quail eggs. I might even have a continuous stream of the eggs coming.

What is this?

I found this stuff when I pulled off some cardboard that I put down to kill off weeds in one my beds. I have no idea what this is though. Any ideas?