"First garlic harvest!"

Says Meade, plunking these down on the counter:



(That's not the counter. I took them outside for good natural light.)

Here's some of the as-yet-unharvested garlic:



Although Meade has grown garlic commercially at other times, in other places, this garlic was planted only because Meade bought a whole lot of harvested garlic from some vendor at the Dane County Farmers' Market, and when he got it home, he discovered it hadn't been properly dried and considered it unfit for eating. So he planted the garlic bulbs, which are in the genus Allium, in a row behind the flowering alliums.

You saw Meade planting the smallest of the flowering alliums in this video last fall. (The day after Election Day. Included in the video is a shot of a political sign in the neighbors' yard for the lefty candidate who was more left than the lefty candidate who won.*) And here's a picture of what the 2 taller types of allium looked like flowering in May.

__________

*Brett Hulsey.

At the Allium Spacecraft Café...

... don't take off just yet.

(That's my photo, animated by Chip Ahoy, according to instructions by Penny.)

At the Allium Café...

... I wouldn't hesitate at all.

Allium with sunspots.

Frontyard, backyard.

In front, we've got a "fence" of alliums where the hedge used to be. Photo — enlarged — by me:



In back, after 25 years of my back-to-nature approach, it's been a lot of work getting to blank-slate level, and Meade has drawn a semi-circle on the slate. Meade took this picture too. (Enlarge.)

At the Allium Café...

... you can stalk around all evening.

(Enlarge. For earlier allium posts, click here.)

At the Allium Café...

... we're seeing some progress.

Meade uses a Japanese digging knife — a hori hori — to plant a lot of allium bulbs really quickly.

He laughs at my "city girl" questions a couple times, and we discuss the results of a local election here in Madison, which demonstrated a Madisonian level of conservatism by picking the Democrat over the Green Party guy.

ADDED: All those tiny bulbs....



I only helped by looking admiringly and taking photographs...



As Meade planted 2,000+ bulbs....

The end of the love grass...

Meade had to cut it down...



... to get to the places where he's planting allium bulbs. And look! In the love grass stubble: an acorn stuck right in:



A squirrel must have thought that would keep it for the winter. And I had Googled for solutions to the problem of the squirrels digging all those little acorn-holes in the new lawn. I was sitting on the stoop at the time, but I relocated to the incredibly soft — spongy! — new turf grass: