Have not been on GW for a couple months so I will make up for it with one long post. :-) I feel your pain, zeedman. Been a bad couple of growing seasons here as well. This year has been especially bad, possibly my worst gardening season ever. For the first time in my life, after 30+ years of gardening, I am seriously considering throwing in the towel and quitting gardening for a while, or maybe taking a year off. The thing is that a person can not really take a year off because the gardens would still need maintenance. If I am going to do maintenance then I may as well plant stuff. I also do not want to quit growing garlic, so at the very least I would have to continue to plant and tend to that crop. I also kinda need to garden every year to maintain my seed bank. I know deep down that no matter what I say or think right now, when spring rolls around I will be out planting stuff. Cannot help it, the urge to get out into the gardens is just too great after putting up with another of our long cold winters. The situation here: Lots of spring snow melt combined with deep frost depth and lots of cold rainy days left the ground saturated. Most of April and May were too wet too work in the gardens, so I did not get nearly everything planted that I wanted to plant. This turned out to not be that big of a disappointment because in June five out of six gardens flooded at least once (got 13+ inches rain in the first two weeks of June, 20+ inches in the 6 weeks from mid May to end June). Four gardens had standing water two or three times, one of those times my main garden was under 6 inches of water for several days. Some of my internet friends tell me to move my gardens to higher ground. We live on the prairie, the entire county is table top flat - there is no higher ground LOL. I had water standing in areas I have never seen flooded before. Had 18 inches of water in the house basement after a three inch overnight rainfall. Pumped it out but the water kept percolating up through the floor. Rain was not the only problem. One evening my area had east winds sustained upper 40mph gusting to upper 50mph for three hours continuous. (My gardens are most exposed to the east.) Shredded tender seedlings and transplants. Trees and limbs down. What a mess. I have had to pick up so many twigs and branches off the lawn and out of the flower gardens this year that I am truly sick and tired of it. Had three separate hail events in May and June. Was small hail and short lived events, but they still did their damage. The first hail event destroyed the plastic windows on my grow boxes and subsequently damaged many of my seedlings that were inside the boxes. Soil is now heavily hard panned from all the rain. Upper 1-2 inches is hard dry crust and soil is saturated mud below. Will not dry out with that hard crust, and pulling weeds is an arduous, frustrating task. Lawn got completely out of control. Am almost finished getting it back, just one area left needing attention. July has been very quiet, only a trace of rain so far. I think we are going into another mid/late summer dry pattern like we have been having for the last 3-4 years. Veggie Status: Snap beans ruined. Reseeded in a dry garden and rabbits destroyed the seedlings. Shot the rabbits and ate them. Replanted cabbage, cauli, broccoli. Replantings doing ok but doubtful I will get any cauli or broccoli. Peas could not be harvested because of muddy garden so are now overgrown, hope to at least be able to save for seed. All pepper plants destroyed or crippled (but I still have some container plants up by the house). All tomato plants crippled. Getting a crop is doubtful, although I have already been eating cherries from my containermaters. The tomato issue is my greatest possible loss and my biggest disappointment. If I got tomatoes and nothing else I would be disappointed but content. Cucumbers 50% crippled but recovering nicely. Way behind. Winter Butternut Squash crippled but recovering nicely. Zucchini crippled. Spinach 100% loss. Lettuce 75% loss. Kohlrabi 100% loss. Kale 100% loss. Beets 75% loss. Carrots 75% loss. Turnips 50% loss. Rutabaga 100% loss. Parsnips 90% loss. Parsley Root 100% loss. Celeriac 100% loss. Radish 100% loss. Rattail Radish 100% loss. Oilseed Radish 100% loss. Wheat 100% loss. Oats 100% loss. Amaranth 100% loss. Flour Corn crippled/stunted. Potatoes, 500 hills. 50% crippled, 10% loss. Dug some of the crippled ones for new potatoes and found only marbles up to quarter size. Approximately half the crop should be excellent, though. My new project is to start saving true potato seed to develop my own potato landrace. A couple of my potato varieties are setting decent amounts of seed fruit. Dill 75% loss. This is a big deal around here, always a shortage around canning time so several years ago I started planting a small crop. Should be enough for me for pickling cukes but not enough to share with anyone. Gonna be some disappointed friends and neighbors scrambling come pickling season. Oh well. Other Herbs doing great (I converted to growing all of them in containers the last couple of years - a very good move for several reasons). Just finished drying first harvests of basil, parsley, sage, savory, marjoram, thyme, oregano. Black, White, Yellow Mustard for seed doing fine. Seed pods are starting to dry down on the plants. Sunflowers doing great. Sweet Potatoes doing ok. Onions are doing fantastic (from Dixondale starts). Shallots doing ok. Multipliers doing ok. Leek doing ok. Celery doing nicely. Fennel doing nicely. Tobacco doing nicely, but way behind. Ground Cherries doing ok. New strawberry plants 100% loss. Alpine Strawberries have been nice. Currants were bumper. Just finished harvesting, picked around 6-7 gallons of berries, most ever. Raspberries were very good, fall crop development looking fantastic. Black raspberries were ok. Wild Black Currants looking good, just starting to ripen. Gooseberries looking good, just starting to ripen. Nanking Bush Cherries poor (spring pollination issues). Sand Cherries looking good, just starting to ripen. Grapes look fantastic - lots of MN vineyards were crippled or destroyed by the cold winter we had. They all grow the "best" of the new, weak cultivars while my delicious old seedy Concords just keep surviving and putting out. This is why I do not acquire new cultivars of ANYTHING, because breeding for hardiness and vigor is at best a low priority - the goal always seems to be unnatural increases in production/yield, fruit size, sugar content, and (occasionally) flavor. Apples looking good. Tree Cherries failed.* Plums failed.* Wild Plums failed.* Pears failed. * Apricots failed.* Chokecherries poor.* Mulberries decent. *Failures due to cold, wet spring weather during blossom period (was pleasantly surprised about the apples), but I have also noticed an utter collapse of pollinating insects around here. First the honeybees starting disappearing several years ago and now I am noticing far fewer numbers of other pollinators as well. I have been hearing this from others in my region as well as folks in other states. I fear this is a very bad moon rising. I am thinking of purchasing a honeybee hive next year strictly for the pollination benefits. Honey production would be a secondary, largely irrelevant issue. I assume all the criminal BT corn planted in my area will kill them off so I expect to have to purchase a hive every year. Problem with this strategy that I have not worked out is that hives might not be available for pick-up until after the fruit trees bloom. Would still be beneficial for all the other stuff, though. Scheduled but never got planted: Huckleberry. Sugarbeet. Mangel. Upland Rice. Rye. Cowpeas. Soybeans. Dry Beans. Pole Dry and Snap Beans. Long Beans. Sweet Corn. Popcorn. Sorghum. Melons. Now to the garlic. Harsh winter did not affect my garlic other than the deep frost delaying it by around two weeks (latest garlic sprouting ever for me). Even my experimental non-mulched beds survived just fine, which proves to me that garlic does not need to be mulched in order to survive winter (assuming an adequate snow cover occurs to minimize natural freeze-thaw cycles). Most of my garlic beds were either flooded or saturated in June. Same situation as zeedman regarding weed issues. I have gone into the beds to at least top the weeds so they do not go to seed. Yesterday I started digging the plants from planted bulbils, those plants are dried up. I estimate 10-25% of crop will be rotten or will not keep until planting time. Larger garlics from planted cloves not ready to harvest, garlic is maturing later than normal this year. As previously mentioned, the soil is cement on top and mud below - will be tough digging and cleaning the garlic this year. At least I do not have to clean perfectly because everything will be used for seed stock. zeedman, are you saying you are getting rounds from planted clove stock? I have heard of it happening although it has never happened to me, but in the past two years I have started getting rounds from rocambole bulbil seed stock. My rice-kernel-size bulbils from porcelains, etc. always produce rounds the first and second years. I never had a rocambole produce rounds from bulbils until last year, they always produced miniature cloved bulbs for me. Last year approx. 90% produced rounds. This year looks like around 75% produced rounds. The rounds I planted last fall are producing decent cloved bulbs this year. I placed a heavy dose of granular fert in the trenches when I planted the roke bulbils last fall. Some of them produced rounds that are golf ball size, most average a bit smaller than that. It is very interesting to me why they wouldn't just clove at that size. I am wondering if there might be virus issues causing rounds to be produced. Plants from planted cloves are doing o.k. I expect them to be smallish because I left all scapes on to produce bulbils. All is seed stock anyway, so no big deal. I am retreating into growing strictly rocamboles, with maybe some purple stripes. They seem to be the toughest, hardiest type for the crappy growing seasons we are getting lately. I hope to be planting around 15,000 German Brown rocambole cloves, rounds, and bulbils this fall. This variety is my best and my largest inventory since the process of recovery from 2012. The stock has been tested clean of AY and GBN but God only knows about viruses (it is my understanding that pretty much all garlic out there carries a virus load, which is why I would love to try to get some true seed from this variety). I have a bunch of other varieties but I am becoming less interested in them out of practical necessity (not to mention testing costs). Along with the hoped-for 15,000 German Browns I hope to be planting another 5,000 of all my other varieties of which I have much smaller inventories. Gnats have been absolutely horrible. Mosquitoes and biting flies a nuisance as well. Impossible to go beyond the porch without mosquito netting and long sleeved shirt. When doing work requiring sitting, kneeling, or bending, I have to tape my pants cuffs and wear high top boots or ankles and lower legs will get all bit up. I can't stand using bug spray and have not used it in years, but I gave in and have been dousing myself. It is either use the nasty junk or stay indoors. No way I am staying indoors in summer time. Bottom line is I think we need to just hang in there. We are due up for a decent growing season once again, everything is cyclical. Each crappy growing season we go through increases our chances of the next one being good. Of course that is what the farmers thought during the dust bowl days of the 1930s, and it did not turn out too well for most of them. ;-) Well, gotta get outside to dig some garlic and attack them weeds. Doubtful I will be out in the gardens tomorrow, 90s and humid in the forecast for next couple of days. That weather will make the gnats happy (truly evil creatures IMO). Take care, -Tom P.S. I might have some garlic plants that are resistant to aster yellows. Been babying along some survivors from the disaster of 2012 (seven survivors out of fourteen thousand). At least two varieties, but no idea what they are. At some point will have them tested for AY and then pursue some possible research from there if they show evidence of past exposure. Might be a potential business opportunity selling proven AY resistant garlic. Turn my disaster into an opportunity, make up for the business loss. Who knows... This post was edited by soilent_green on Mon, Jul 21, 14 at 11:04

Ham and Split Pea Soup from Epicurious : From Cooks Illustrated March 1999. this is a delicious soup but takes a little bit of time to make the broth but it's incredible. You can use a leftover ham bone if you get one of those big hams at the holidays (freeze the bone with a bit of meat) or a ham hock is okay too but can be salty. 1 piece (about 2.5 lbs) smoked bone in picnic 4 bay leaves 1 lb split peas rinsed and picked through 1 tsp dried thyme 2 tbsp olive oil 2 med onions, chopped med 2 med carrots, chopped med 2 med celery stalks, chopped med 1 tbsp butter (optional) 2 med garlic cloves, minced 3 small new potatoes scrubbed and med. diced ground black pepper balsamic vinegar Bring 3 quarts of water, ham, bay leaves to a boil, overd med high heat in large soup kettle. Reduce heat ot low and simmer until meat is tender and pulls away from the bone (2-2.5 hours). Remove ham meat and bone from broth; add split peas and thyme and simmer until peas are tender and dissolved (45 min - 1 hour). Meanwhile, when ham is cooled enough to handle, shred meat into bite sized pieces and set aside. Discard rind and bone. While ham is simmering, heat oil in large skillet over high heat until shimmering. Add onions, carrots and celery; saute, stiring frequently until most of the liquid evaporates and veggies begin to brown; 5-6 minutes. Reduce heat to low; add butter, garlic, and sugar. Cook veggies, stirring frequently, until deeply browned; 30-35 min, set aside. Add sauteed veggies, potatoes, and shredded ham to soup; simmer until potatoes are tender and peas dissolve adn thicken soup to the consistency of light cream (about 20 min more). Season with black pepper. Ladle soup into bowls, sprinkle with red onion (optional)and pass vinegar (optional)

Nancy, I don't think I have tried that salad dressing before. I'll have to make it some day. :) What kind of vinegar should I use? Apple cider, white, or it doesn't matter? Kim, that recipe is so simple! Haha, will have to try it when my garden starts producing tomatoes. DH loves raw tomatoes. (He hates it when I cook sliced tomatoes in my stir-fries.) Also, has anyone watched Ugly Delicious on Netflix? I thought it is pretty fun to see how the different food cultures create the same dish in each episode. Disclaimer: think it's a either-you-love-it-or-hate-it kind of show, and there's some cussing in it.

I prefer russets for our mashed potatoes. Before I cook the potatoes, I heat some half & half in a small heavy saucepan with a clove of smashed garlic, a sprig of rosemary, a few whole black peppercorns and sometimes a small bay leaf. I keep this warm and let the aromatics infuse the half & half. Then I peel and quarter the potatoes - boil in salted water until tender. Drain and return to pan on low heat until moisture evaporates. Mash in lots of butter. Strain the half and half, add a bit at a time and mash until desired consistency is reached. We like some texture to ours and prefer them somewhat stiff.