I put potatoes in after garlic adding a bit of fertilizer beforehand. I do this every year and the garlic seems to purify the soil so the usual diseases which inflict potatoes don't seem to be a problem. It might be a bit late for peas, however, as they don't do well in hot weather and are much more likely to be bothered by powdery mildew and other diseases late in the year.

I cut down the pea foliage(mid July) and add compost, then transplant four week old broccoli and cauliflower. This gives me a second crop of broccoli+cauliflower which are harvested end of Sept. to first week of Oct. Summer lettuce transplants(slobolt) are interplanted among the four week old cole transplants. This gives me lettuce when tomatoes come in. June 1, I transplant squash or pepper plants in areas where I pick spinach. Spinach beds are done by mid-June and the other plants take over until frost. I've also used the old spinach space for a second fall cole crop...direct seeded. Pole beans can be planted June 1 on the outer edge of a pea bed where they will climb on bamboo poles. Beans come in about 60 days from germination and will go until frost. Bottom line, (but this is Z4) make sure you have transplants in by July 1 for fall, or at least seeded. Beets+carrots+lettuce. Light levels(the sun) start to get low here by mid-Aug. with shorter growing days.

Tom, I think that if someone is publicly selling garlic for planting purposes, it should be large... maybe not the absolute biggest of the harvest, but still very large. I can see him keeping his absolute largest to replant, of course... but the stuff I harvested here in July, even from some leftover loose runt cloves, were bigger than some I received. Therefore the thoughts that if the winning bid was more than $0.33 each, maybe they would have been bigger? These were different varieties than I bought from him last year, but last year's seemed bigger. As for the corn gluten meal, we really don't know if the weeds are annuals or perennials, they may have blown in or even survived thru finished compost. Some is crabgrass, others I've never seen before here, not that I remember anyway. I think the soil temp is warm enough for weeds to germinate still, and I couldn't get back there to weed so everything went to seed... and yanking & raking & everything probably spread seeds everywhere. So they still may germinate this year, plus next year. Also, I don't have any mulch, unless I use compost that I pay for... no grass here... maybe some leaves in another month. I personally have never mulched my garlic here. The corn gluten I think recommended app rate is around 10-20lbs per 1000 sq ft--the entire pumpkin patch is only around 250-300. You usually apply 2x per year. It's effectiveness increases each year you reapply it. I think it starts out in the 60-70% range the first app and handles about a dozen or more weeds (crabgrass, dandelion, etc.) The list is on Wikipedia I think. This should last me a pretty long time, or I can always put it on ebay in 10lb bags ;-) Plus, it acts as a fertilizer, around 9 or 10-0-0. For tomatoes, my Dr. Lyle is about done except for a few large green ones near the top, but still have many other varieties still producing. I only pulled 1 determinate plant. Next year I will devote more time & space on my own crosses/breeding. Of course I don't think I can get away with just 5! Plus you sent me 2 to grow, thanks. But I probably won't grow 12 different cherries like usual. I grew maybe 80 varieties of maters and spent sooooo much time saving seeds for ebay, and peeling & dicing tomatoes for Annie's Salsa (41 pints or so canned), that I think I only actually sat down and ate about 5 full tomatoes all year! And just 1 or 2 BLT's! We did do 8 gallons of puree with the Spremy too. Matter of fact, I STILL didn't get to save seeds from every one of the 80+ varieties this year yet! The smell of rotting split tomatoes that now look like seed "sacs" is making me sick! Today I did maybe 4 varieties of peppers--many drying in the oven to grind plus just got done preparing 15 Billy Ogden's stuffed hot peppers (mozz/parm/cream cheese/garlic/etc.) Pepper plants are still loaded--have to find more uses for them! Mark

Sherry, Well, I think you can plant them and have limited success. Onions have to be in the ground and achieve a certain amount of growth before bulbing is induced. Since bulbing is induced by a combination of daylength and temperature, it is going to happen when the daylength-temperature combo is achieved, whether the onions have been in the ground for one week, one month, or whatever. So, that is why we have to plant onions so very early--to get maximum growth before initiation of the bulbing process begins. Most onions needs to be in the ground a minimum of 90 to 100 days before bulb initiation starts in order to size up fully, and some need 100 to 120 days. Short day-length onions will begin to bulb up once the daylength (hours of sunlight) reaches about 10-12 hours in combination with the right temperature. Intermediate day-length onions need 12-14 hours days to bulb up. Long day-length onions will begin to bulb up once the daylength is 14-16 hours and the temperature is right, which is why the long daylength onions are not grown in our part of the county. (Our daylength here maxes out around 14 hours.) So, if the onions go into the ground late, they will grow and they still will bulb up once bulb initiation occurs. They'll just be smaller when bulb initiation occurs, thus, they will be smaller at maturity than onions that were planted earlier. One reason that short day-length and intermediate day-length onions planted in the southern third of the country get bigger than those EXACT same varieties grown in the upper 2/3s of the country is that our weather allows us to plant the onions up to 5 months prior to bulb initiation, and the northern states' colder weather does not allow them to plant until approx. 75 days before bulb initiation. So, if you plant late this year, you'll get onions that are "northern-sized" instead of "southern-sized", but you'll still get onions! If you don't mind knowing you'll get smaller onions, go ahead and go for it. It would be a good learning experience if you've never grown onions before. Some commonly-sold short day-length onions are TX 1015Y (aka Texas Sweet or Texas Supersweet), Yellow Granex, White Bermuda, Southern Belle Red and Contessa. Some commonly-sold intermediate day-length onions are Candy, Stockton Sweet Red and Superstar. Some commonly sold long day-length onions (and these should NOT be sold in our region) include Borrettana Cippolini, Red Torpedo Tropea, Ailsa Craig (there's also a tomato by this name), Copra, Big Daddy, Red Burgermaster, Red Zeppelin, Walla Walla, Yellow Sweet Spanish and Ringmaster. I've already planted my main crop of onions, but I do continue planting onions in various spots around the garden as companion plants, and I will, probably through mid-to-late April. Of course, I don't care if those companion-planted onions bulb up or not. Sometimes I leave the companion plant onions in the ground until the following year, and let them bloom in the spring. Their tiny flowers attract a TON of tiny pollinators and beneficial insects, and are quite attractive as well. Dawn