Lovely! I pulled a few Blossom turbans last week and they are curing nicely. Hope you have lots of dry, breezy weather for curing yours. When I pulled my overwintering onions a week or so back, I noticed they left behind much more root mass in the soil compared to other onions. Interesting.

In zone eight we always plant garlic in the fall but I'm not sure about your zone. I usually harvest garlic mid summer when all but about seven of the leaves have turned brown. Pull them up and let them dry out in a shady spot for a week or so until all of the leaves dry. At that point you can use it or store it for the winter. It will last from four to ten months or so depending on variety. Onions from sets usually do better as green onions rather than bulb onions. The green onions can be harvested all winter if the ground isnt frozen. If the onions don't go to seed in the summer they will start to grow large bulbs and when the tops start to die down they are ready to pull. Good luck. Theresa.

Diane, It is a challenge to figure it out, isn't it! It is safe to say that I could grow zero brussels sprouts and my family would be delighted...so that one is easy to figure out. (I like 'em fresh but no one else cares for them. LOL) Today we were looking at fresh produce at Central Market in Fort Worth (yes, I was in hog heaven, thank you very much) and Tim sampled a tiny cup of black-eyed peas. Now, several thoughts ran through my mind. First of all, do they "have to" give away samples of black-eyed peas to get people to try them? Secondly, doesn't everyone know what blackeyed peas taste like? LOL Finally, when my dear husband looked at the bag of more-or-less freshly hulled black-eyed peas (maybe a pint of fresh peas in that bag) and saw they were $5.99, I practically purred like a kitten, thinking of all the pint bags of freshly-shelled (then frozen) black-eyed peas in our freezer.....all of which grew right here in our good old Oklahoma soil with no chemicals, etc. I felt smug and content (in a good way, NOT in a conceited 'holier-than-thou-because-we-grow-our-own" way) but more than that I felt grateful that we are able to grow our own and process/preserve them to be eaten later on. It is the most wonderful feeling in the world to be feeding your family from your own garden and to know where your food came from and how it was raised. I have a pressure canner but have only done BWB stuff this year along with tons of dehydrating and freezing. I go on canning binges....can a lot some years, less in others. With this year's recurring rains, I've put up more food for the 'off-season' than in many prior drought years, and I am really happy about that. So far, one thing I've learned is that no matter how many beans and peas I plant, we eat them all long before the next gardening season rolls around. So, I am planning on lots more next year. Yesterday I picked Roma beans from the garden...and I don't even remember which variety I have except that they are the bush form and that it was from Franchi Simenti seed, and they are so good that I know I must plant many more of them next year. I can only remember one year in recent memory....and it might have been 2004....where I put up enough beans to get us from one gardening year to the next without running out. Growing the soil is why new beds take me so long to build too. In the long run, it is worth it of course, but turning clay into great garden loam certainly involves a long commitment! And, yet, I don't know how we could have done it any differently. I have found very few (almost no) spots in Love County that have a nice, rich, humusy sandy loam that is naturally occurring. For most people here, there are three choices: very sandy soil that drains too quickly in dry years and is prone to nematodes, heavy, thick red (but highly fertile) clay like we have here, and caliche clay full of rocks. So, with those three to choose from, I'm glad we have the clay, but I also appreciate our one small band of sand that cuts across the yard. I greow pecan and fruit trees in that band of sandy soil and they love it. Got your eye on a specific brand of canner? As for jars, I collect them. hee hee I can't walk past jars or lids without wanting more......"just in case". Even if I have plenty of empty jars sitting in storage waiting to be used, I almost have a panic attack when the stores start putting the jars and lids on clearance in the fall. What if I need jars a month or two from now and can't find any? (This has never happened--I always have jars tucked away in the pantry or in a closet, but "what if?" LOL). I always thought I'd have a smaller garden as time went on and we got older, but now I'm growing enough for 2 families instead of 1, so I'm growing more. (Although, DS and his wife and their daughter don't eat as many veggies as we do, except for french fries and green beans...and salsa.) My all-time favorite dedicated kitchen garden spot was an 8' x 8' raised bed in which I planted a "Salsa Garden". It was just outside the back door and in it I had tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic and cilantro. If you had a sudden urge to make salsa, everything was right there. I later planted a few rose bushes in that raised bed and enjoyed that, but I liked it better as a salsa garden. Dawn

I store the entire harvest of garlic and onions from my backyard in the cool garage. I keep only a small amount in nice ceramic trays on the countertop near the main prep area in my kitchen. I dislike supermarket onions and garlic because they tend to start rotting or shriveling in storage. The onions I harvest never seem to rot and my garlic stores excellently for two years, at least. I don't grow potatoes, so I don't have a ton to store until the next harvest. The 10lbs bag I bring from the supermarket goes into a lower cabinet in the kitchen - I make sure to keep my potatoes in a dark place. No spoilage since I go through them quickly.