110 Tomato Troubleshooter Part 2. Harvesting Garlic

Last time, here on the Garden Basics podcast, we were talking about Tomato Troubleshooting with Don Shor, owner of Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California. We talked about dealing with blossom end rot, sunburn issues and problematic watering, which can cause your tomatoes to suffer. Today, it’s Tomato Troubleshooter 2021, Part 2, with Don. We’ll delve into the scary world of tomato hornworms and fruit worms, beautiful but deadly diseases such as late blight, wilts. And, more troublesome tomato critters, such as the leaf-footed stink bug.

On a happier note, it’s coming up to garlic harvest time! We have tips for getting the garlic out of the ground and into storage…and that takes awhile.

It’s all on episode 110 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. 

And we will do it all in under 30 minutes. Let’s go!

Pictured:
Tomato Hornworm

Links:
Smart Pots
Farmer Fred Rant: Plants That Attract Beneficial Insects
Farmer Fred Rant: Tomato Troubleshooting
Nematode Control
Leaf Footed Bug pictures, description
Redwood Barn Nursery, Davis CA
Filaree Farm garlic catalog
Book: Growing Great Garlic
Book: The Complete Book of Garlic
University of Minnesota: Growing Garlic

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Chapters

• 1:23 Tomato Troubleshooting, Part 2
• 9:45 Smart Pots!
• 10:49 Tomato Troubleshooting, cont.
• 23:45 Garlic Growing/Harvesting Tips

Transcript

GB 110 Tomato Troubleshooting, Part 2. Harvesting Garlic.

28:29

SPEAKERS

Don Shor, Farmer Fred

Farmer Fred  00:00

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred. 

Farmer Fred  00:20

Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot. 

Farmer Fred  00:32

Last time here on the Garden Basics podcast, we were talking about tomato troubleshooting with Don Shor. He's the owner of Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California. We talked about dealing with blossom end rot, sunburn issues and problematic watering, which can cause your tomatoes to suffer. Today, it's Tomato Troubleshooter 2021 Part Two with Don. We will delve into the scary world of tomato hornworms and fruit worms. Beautiful but deadly diseases such as late blight and wilts and more troublesome tomato critters, such as the leaf-footed stinkbug. On a happier note, it's coming up to garlic harvest time, we have tips for getting the garlic out of the ground and into storage. And that takes a while. It's all on episode 110 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. And we'll do it all in under 30 minutes. Let's go. 

Farmer Fred  01:31

Last episode, you might recall we were talking with Don Shor, owner of Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California. We were doing our tomato troubleshooting for 2021. And in the last episode, we talked about several common tomato problems, such as blossom end rot, and problems with tomatoes that are caused by the sun or heat or your watering habits. Let's continue our conversation with Don Shor and find out about more tomato troubles that might be headed your way; but we'll have a cure for them. 

Farmer Fred  02:04

The tomato hornworm or tobacco hornworm, depending upon the number of stripes on its back, I think it's what it is, is a very common occurrence. And it's it's not something to be fearful of. 

Don Shor  02:19

And well, people are. It's interesting how people react when they see a four inch caterpillar with a horn on the back. Some of them kind of jump up and scream. They eat an amazing amount of foliage in a very short period of time. So it can do a lot of leaf damage. And  it might even eat some fruit and wander off onto a nearby pepper eggplant by accident, but mostly, just eats foliage. And usually there's only one or two on the vine when you're dealing with them. So it's just a matter of first, finding the droppings. Look straight up on the vine from where the droppings are. You'll find this thing looking at you and you can then dispatch it by whatever method you prefer. Personally, I like to just kind of throw it about 20 feet and figure that takes care of the problem. Others like to snip them in half with their pruners, which is pretty gross. But it works. It turns into an amazing, beautiful, fascinating moth. So if there's a kid in the household and you've got something to put it in and you've got enough tomato foliage, at least once, you should probably put this thing in a giant jar, feed it a bunch of leaves every day until it finally pupates and then let it turn into the amazing Sphinx moth that it becomes. But really all they're doing is eating foliage. They're not a huge problem on the plant except for the amount of foliage any caterpillar has to eat in a given day. So you can generally find them. If you don't want to pick it by hand, you can go get a Bt spray, Bacillus thuringiensis organic spray, very specific for caterpillars. It doesn't harm beneficials or anything like that. And go ahead and spray the plant the caterpillar feeds on. It will be killed by that. So there is a spray option but you're spraying a whole vine for one or two Caterpillars. It's probably easier just to get some sharp-eyed helper to go out there and find the caterpillars and dispatch them directly.

Farmer Fred  03:57

 I'll take your leaf eating tomato hornworms for my fruit eating tomato hornworms.

Don Shor  04:04

While they do that, there's also the tomato fruitworm, which is much more annoying because it burrows right into the fruit. And obviously that fruit is no longer useful. They're also harder to control. So there, you unfortunately, you find the hole tunneled into the side of the green fruit. Just pick it off and dispose of it and keep an eye out. That's a case where the BT spray could be very helpful if you're having an ongoing problem with tomato fruit worm, it's a different insect, a different caterpillar, you might want to spray for that. And again, this is an organic, very safe spray.

Farmer Fred  04:32

And don't forget Mother Nature's trying to help you out here. The social wasps, paper wasps and others (yellowjackets) will bite chunks out of the tomato hornworm and take it back to their nest. And also if you attract birds to your yard. They'll go after those critters as well.

Don Shor  04:49

Yeah, mocking birds, and Blue Jays can be big helpers in the garden. They eat all kinds of bugs and they'll go after a caterpillar,  go after leaf footed bugs and stink bugs and they can actually give a surprising level of control on all those problems.

Farmer Fred  05:01

I've noticed too, that I think there is some sort of Darwinian change going around in the bird world. Because the robins that are hanging out here around my blueberry bushes, don't fly away when I come out. Now they just stand their ground and give me the stink eye.

Don Shor  05:15

Yeah, those are their blueberries, not yours, blueberries. you're sharing your space with them. It's not really your property.

Farmer Fred  05:23

All right. Now there are ongoing issues with tomatoes that can be weather related, like late blight, black mold, bacterial speck. Not much you can do about the weather.

Don Shor  05:36

Well, those are all diseases and then they're on the plant. I hate to say this, but  probably it was there when you got it. That's the simple thing. As simple a preventive on this is to inspect plants at the time you either buy them or accept them from your friend or get them at the you know from that guy down the street who's selling them for 50 cents. Look at the leaves, look for spots on the leaves. I'm not real deeply concerned in our arid climate about early blight or bacterial speck, you can simply pick those leaves off and dispose of them. As we get into periods of 10-20% humidity which is pretty much every day here in the summer. Those will go away. Late blight can be problematic especially for listeners in rainy summer climates, it can be horrific, it can really spread rapidly. So carefully inspect the plants when you buy them. Look for those spots on the leaves. I strongly suggest you go online and look for illustrations of late blight versus early blight and bacterial speck. Cornell and Rutgers Universitys have some great illustrations you can find online. They can spread rapidly into the vein of the leaf, into the petiole of the leaf, and all the way into the main stem. And it causes a die back that is reminiscent of Fireblight on apples. I mean, you get a sudden die-back of leaves or even whole shoots on the plant. In our climate, it rarely progresses much past a few leaves and maybe a side branch. I highly recommend you prune it out at that point put that pruning into a bag, dispose of it. Generally the problem goes away because it doesn't rain here in the summer. If we had overhead watering or rain, and very high humidity, it could spread very rapidly. And this has happened in the Mid Atlantic and upper Midwest parts of the country where they've had years where late blight is a problem in the supply chain. He says subtly. And people took home plants that had late blight on them and then they had a rainy June or even into July and it spreads very rapidly down the whole bed of plants. In that situation, you're gonna need a fungicide, you're gonna probably need to go talk to your local garden center, they may recommend you rotate a couple of different fungicides because these can be very problematic. In our area if you prune it out, and here's the other key thing, spreas your plants far enough apart. Three, four or five feet apart. My tomatoes are six feet apart, so that there's good air movement, good sunlight on them. Prune out the affected portion. That's usually the end of it for us and that will probably help a lot in those areas where late blight can be very problematic. Air movement and sunlight are the enemies of disease.

Farmer Fred  07:58

But let's blame the gardener for letting their sprinklers hit the tomatoes, as well.

Don Shor  08:02

Well, that can be a factor. You shouldn't be sprinkler irrigating tomatoes in general. Yeah, I mean I wash off tomato plants for other reasons. But I do it on a day that I know the humidity is going to drop down, as it does here, to let's say 10 to 20% in the middle of the afternoon. So if you're in an area that's muggy, you don't want to be overhead watering at all, right. And rinsing plants off can make it splash from plant to plant very rapidly. Space them out. Get your plants more spaced out.

Farmer Fred  08:25

Yeah, and if you are hand watering your tomato plants, you may want to do it lower to the ground instead of spraying over the top of their heads. Although if you live in a non humid area you might be able to get away with that if you water early in the day to allow the plant to dry off. But if you water late, you're gonna have things like late blight, black mold, bacterial speck. At FarmerFred.com as well as at the Farmer Fred Rant blog page, you can find a whole list of these tomato troubleshooters that we are talking about, along with the symptoms that you will see, like on the leaves we've been talking about ,as far as with the blights, or bacterial speck. With bacterial speck, the leaf spots are near the edge of the leaf. They're dark brown with a yellow ring with a halo effect, right? The late blight, the beautiful purple brown area on the leaves. I mean, it's just a beautiful shade of purple, but that's a sign of late blight.

Don Shor  09:23

And it can move very rapidly. That's the other thing about that one. It can move rapidly and cause a lot of die back. I know that commercially, they frequently spray with copper as a preventative early in the season. There are organic versions of copper spray that you can find, if that's your preference. That's been preventative and if you've had a problem with it in the past, it might be worth considering. But in arid climates, it's not generally an issue. 

Farmer Fred  09:49

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Farmer Fred  10:48

Let's get back to our conversation with Don Shor of Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, California. We're doing tomato troubleshooting. This is the second of two parts. And there is one thing every tomato gardener can do to lessen the threat of spreading diseases year after year after year among your tomatoes. 

Farmer Fred  11:09

You used the word a few minutes ago that we should re-emphasize. You used the word rotate. And I think it's very important not to plant your tomato plants in the same spot year after year, especially if you've had problems with root knot nematodes, or fusarium wilt or verticillium wilt.

Don Shor  11:26

You have the big three right there. There's soilborne problems. Nematodes are not, you know, a disease. The other two are diseases and the general recommendations, not just tomatoes to rotate, but anything that's related to tomatoes. So that includes potatoes, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, Molly's groundcherry, all those things that are in the Nightshade family should be rotated out of the bed. Now this is challenging for a lot of people, you don't have a lot of space in your backyard. If you're at the stage of planning a yard, I would suggest having three beds for vegetables, that makes it easy. So one of them is for the Nightshade family members. And then you just rotate to the next one to the next one. It is standard in farming to rotate tomatoes with beans and corn, things like that. Just putting in something that's not a host for those diseases and those pests. And the reason for that is because those problems, when you get them, are very difficult to manage. Managing a problem in the soil that has built up to the numbers that are doing injury, like the root knot nematode. Very, very challenging. Yes, there's a product on the market. It's called nematode control. It's a drench, it's not cheap. So probably better to prevent the problem if you can, possibly. Do it just by how you rotate your crops.

Farmer Fred  12:36

Exactly. Not all nematodes are bad, you can find beneficial nematodes that can control the root knot nematodes. Yeah.

Don Shor  12:43

And there's a soil drench that's derived from a saponin base material. It's an organic material, but read the label, it's actually got a warning label. So it'd be better if you can just prevent the problem from the start by where you plant, and how you know, as I say, most people's backyards, they have one garden bed for the vegetables and it's not the easiest thing to remember. So look for that the V-F-N label on the hybrid tomato varieties. And you know, the heirlooms don't have this. The V-F-N stands for verticillium, Fusarium and nematode resistance. And that's something that's been bred into many of the hybrid tomatoes. I should also mention, we're talking about leaf blight, there are new varieties that are resistant to late blight. So if you're in an area where leaf blight is a problem as you're looking through the seed catalog, that's a common comment. Now that's a complicated subject, to put it mildly, but it would be another tool in your tool chest in terms of dealing with these problems in a region where that can be an issue.

Farmer Fred  13:40

Another great reason to plant hybrid tomatoes. Look for those letters, V, F and/or N.  And let's not forget T and A. That would be tobacco mosaic virus and Alternaria. There are other problems that might be attacking your tomatoes this summer that you may see on your other plants, too. Like whiteflies, aphids, powdery mildew. And you know a lot of this has to do with people loving their tomato plants and other plants to death with too much nitrogen fertilizer. That stresses the plant. It puts out weak growth that's very attractive to those pests I just mentioned.

Don Shor  14:16

Yeah, lush growth certainly encourages white flies. I will tell you though, white flies are pretty easy to manage. For me. I found that wider spacing (helps), so I don't get this big overgrown mass of tomato foliage. That has made a big difference. This is an interesting one: dragonflies love to eat white flies. They're entomophagous. That's today's vocabulary word: entomophagous. They eat other insects, and they can do a very good job of keeping white flies under control. In my own garden center, white flies are managed by a very vigorous rinsing of the plants early in the day, three to five days in a row, stressing the undersides of the leaves where the larvae need to be blasted off the leaf and we find that we get very good control that way. We do it early in the day. So the plants have a chance to dry off by the end of the day. And if we had a problem that was continuing beyond that, we would probably move up to neem oil very carefully, not using it on a hot day, or even a light summer oil. But we've generally not had to do that as long as we monitored carefully. We monitor plants, not just the tomato plants, but plants nearby that are nesting sites and resting sites for white flies. And we vigorously rinse those as well. You will find over time if you garden in the same place and you keep planting flowering things amongst your tomatoes and herb plants nearby and you have some ornamental grasses over there on the other side of the garden, and you have some shrubs that have flowers at different times, beneficial insect populations will increase steadily and consistently. And over time, you'll get to the point where you see aphids, you see white flies, and these kind of magically go away. And that's because you've encouraged the beneficial insects that feed on them. But in order to do that, your garden has to be something more than a desert for them. It has to have places for them to hide and multiply and increase and you have to reduce your use of insecticides. And it's also rather important in the case of some, like the dragon flies, to have a water source nearby. All these diversity in your garden is fundamental to getting the populations of beneficials. Not just the insects that come in and help control but birds you know, mockingbirds, Blue Jays, things that come in and eat the bigger bugs. Generally speaking, once you have a really active garden, that way, your pest problems will diminish, they'll probably take care of themselves. Whenever I see someone bringing a sample of aphids to my garden center. I'll take them out, I'll show them: look, some of these are already parasitized. You can tell they're they're bloated, they're tan they're not moving. So your problem is solving itself rather than buying a pesticide. Now let's let nature run its course.

Farmer Fred  16:40

Many farmers here in California are now lining their crops with alyssum, because that attracts a whole host of beneficial insects that do just exactly what you're describing. We'll have a link on today's show notes about plants that attract beneficial insects because those can take your insecticide spray bills down to nothing. 

Don Shor  17:03

Personally, I've actually never sprayed a tomato plant with a pesticide here.

Farmer Fred  17:09

Never?

Don Shor  17:10

 Never.

Don Shor  17:12

There are people listening who cannot get through a season, in rainier  climates in particular, without spraying because their crops would be ruined. So we're in an area where if we can get to the point where it's not necessary at all, I've never had to spray a tomato plant for it with a pesticide. in Sacramento Valley.

Farmer Fred  17:28

He said, bravely.

Don Shor  17:33

I was lucky, honestly. All right.

Farmer Fred  17:35

Now there is one other thing that may cause people worrying when they start  seeing oily brown leaves, especially near the base of the tomato plant. That's usually a sign of tomato russet mites.

Don Shor  17:47

Yeah, every summer, it seems like I get one or two customers that have that. I had it happen on my vines one time, way back when I first was gardening here, and they sort of dry up from the ground up, it's really hard to tell because it takes a 40 power hand lens to see this particular type of mite. And they're tough to control, by the way. It happened to my crop one year and it's never happened since, and this is, you know, it's that's the way it seems to work. It is a mite. it's very tiny one, and it comes from the ground level and it moves up the plant gradually increasing and by about the first of August your plant can be about half dead from this. It's a tough one to control. Vigorous rinsing with water probably helps to some degree. Mites, in general, are very challenging to control, you generally look for a suffocating agent, like a thin oil or something like that. But I've got to always mention when I say anything about oil, high temperatures can cause leaf burn when you spray oil. So, if you've got a period of cooler weather, that might be a fine time to go out and spray. But in our normal summer, the average summer temperature of 93 degrees here in July and August. That's our average high temperature in this area. That will burn plants. So you've got to spray when we're in our cooler spells of that average. And it can be a challenging one. One main thing on the russet mite is at the end of the season, everything needs to go away. All of the foliage, all of the plant, all that needs to be taken away, not to your compost pile in this particular instance, I would send it out to the landfill.

Farmer Fred  19:14

Yeah, exactly. Clean it up at the end of every season and also during the season too. When you see fallen fruit, fallen leaves, rake them up, put them in the greenwaste. Don't try composting them. There are a couple of other cosmetic tomato problems such as cat facing or maybe the concentric circles you see near the stem, I wouldn't worry about those.

Don Shor  19:36

Those are usually watering-related. The plant was just inadequately watered, then there was a period of increasing temperature. Again, if you can get to the point where you're deep irrigating and your soil retains moisture, those of you with raised planters need to work to get the soil to retain moisture. There's a bunch of things you can do. But when you do water, water deep enough. A tomato plant needs several gallons of water when you irrigate it. And you'll find that if your soil holds moisture pretty well, you tend to have less of a problem with that. But again, those are things that can just be cut out and the rest of the fruit is usable.

Farmer Fred  20:09

Is there anything we left out?

Don Shor  20:12

Stink bugs.

Farmer Fred  20:13

Okay.

Don Shor  20:13

And leaf footed bugs. Those guys show up and  they're scary looking, particularly the leaf footed bug, which is an increasing pest in many parts of California. I don't know how widespread it is in other parts of the country. And it's pokes its little probiscus into the fruit and makes a little spot that you would only notice if you're looking for it, so in general they don't do a lot of damage to fruit. They do this to peaches as well, any kind of soft fruit. They are a general feeder. Usually people find some here, some. There's not a huge problem. Sometimes they go out they'll find 50 on one fruit, which is really gross. And in that case you have an opportunity to go get a bucket, put some soapy water in it, shake them into the bucket. Problem solved.

Farmer Fred  20:53

Yeah, leaf footed bugs, it turns out, are rather popular throughout the Sunbelt. There is even a Florida leaf footed bug.

Don Shor  21:00

Charming.

Farmer Fred  21:01

Yes, they have their own name. 

Don Shor  21:03

And we have three or four species in California. And they're very recognizable, but the only issue is that we find them in all different stages. We find the nymphs, we find the adults. The nymphs look rather different from the adults, and they do like all other stinkbugs two aspects. One they stink when you squish them, too. They are a congregating type of insect which means you tend to find them in groups, particularly on your pomegranate tree. They really like pomegranates. So if you're looking for the the source of them on your tomatoes, look at your nearby pomegranate, the developing fruit. You may find 30 or 40 on a single fruit. And they don't really do much damage to the pomegranate. They do a little bit. You can go after them with a handheld vacuum cleaner. Or just tap them off into a bucket full of soapy water. 

Farmer Fred  21:44

There you go. I was just looking here about how widespread the leaf footed bug is. It really does love the Sun Belt and even slightly cooler places. The leaf-footed bug has been reported as far north as Long Island, New York, and ranges south to Florida, west to Iowa and Kansas, southwest through Texas to California, including lower California and into Mexico, Guatemala and Costa Rica.

Don Shor  22:09

It is definitely an increasing pests in many parts of California. And I think that may be related to the cropping patterns in ag in our area. It's a pest of almonds. You know, we've have 10s of 1000s of acres of almond trees planted over the last 30 years here in the Sacramento Valley. Guess what? I have to identify leaf footed bugs several times a week, whereas 20 years ago, it might be three or four times during the course of the whole summer. They are a stink bug and there are other stink bugs that are problematic in other areas and one that's new to our area. And generally speaking those poke their probiscus into things and cause a little discolored area on the fruit. From a home garden standpoint, they're not a huge problem. Typically, obviously, farmers can't have those kinds of cosmetic problems on their fruit.

Farmer Fred  22:50

Now what is it Mother Nature used to say? Oh yeah, "Mother Nature abhors a monoculture."

Don Shor  22:55

I think that nature abhors a vacuum is the phrase you're looking for. But a vacuum can be very handy.

Farmer Fred  23:01

Yes. Yes, yes. Now remember, if you're using a vacuum to pick up stinkbugs, that vacuum is going to stink. So leave it outside.

Don Shor  23:10

Put it in a plastic bag when you're done with it to make sure they don't just crawl right back out of the vacuum, too.

Farmer Fred  23:15

Don Shor, Redwood, Barn Nursery Davis, California. Thanks for troubleshooting our tomatoes for us.

Don Shor  23:21

Great to be here. Thanks Fred.

Farmer Fred  23:25

Don mentioned earlier (last episode) about his list of his favorite tomato varieties to grow. You can find that list at his website, RedwoodBarn.com. That's RedwoodBarn.com. You can also find out about his radio show and podcast at RedwoodBarn.com as well.

Farmer Fred  23:51

Mid to late June, early July, is a good time to be harvesting garlic if you planted it, and that's true throughout most of the country. Here in Northern California, where 90% of all commercial garlic is grown, generally the California early and California late varieties do quite well here. And it's harvest time for them. For cold climates, there are other varieties that do better than California early or California late. In fact, according to the University of Minnesota, if you plant California varieties of garlic in cold climates, they will develop a hot flavor. Well, if you like hot garlic, go ahead. So, for colder climates, you may want to choose some varieties that do well in your area. And by the way, all of these do well in California as well, such as hardneck garlic, the rocambole, the purple stripe and the porcelain, or softneck types like artichoke and silverskin. These varieties typically produce more cloves. And by the way, with softneck types, they're easy to braid. Softneck varieties don't grow a flowering stock like the hard neck types, but the climate, though, can change that quality. A variety that is softneck in one location can form a flowering stock in a different location. 

Farmer Fred  25:04

Now, you might just dig up a couple of bulbs and see what they look like. Harvesting too early will result in small bulbs;. harvesting too late will result in cloves popping out of the bulbs. And again, harvest garlic between late June and late July. Begin harvesting when the lower leaves turn brown and when half or slightly more than half of the upper leaves remain green. That's a good rule of thumb. Alternatively, you can pull a few bulbs, cut them in half. If the cloves fill the skins, then the bulbs are ready to harvest. 

Farmer Fred  25:37

Now one of the things you don't want to do is dig them up with a trowel. If you have them in tight quarters, you may want to dig down with your fingers to get the bulb without damaging the bulb. That's the problem with the trowel. It could slice through the bulb if you got too close to it. So either use your fingers or back off a few inches and get underneath the bulb with a spading fork and bring it up that way. Don't remove the shoots after you've pulled them out of the ground. You need for them to cure. Do knock off any large clumps of soil you might find and then put the plants in a warm, dry, airy replace for three to four weeks to cure. Here in California, maybe two to three weeks because it is warmer here. And by the way, here in California, after you've dug up those bulbs, place them in the shade in a tray so you can get some air circulation in the bottom. And you can place them outside in the shade because in California that's a warm, dry airy place. In colder climates where there is the chance of rain, you may want to just place them indoors in your root cellar. By the way, when I'm elected mayor of suburbia, all homes will come with root cellars. By putting those plants in a warm, dry airy place for a few weeks that'll help dry the sheaths that surround the bulbs, as well as the shoots and roots. 

Farmer Fred  26:52

So after that period of a few weeks, cut the shoots one half to one inch above the bulbs, and you can trim the roots off, closer to the bulb base. Save garlic cloves from one crop to the next. Keep the biggest ones for planting the following year. Enjoy the rest, and again keep them in a cool dry place. I'm telling you: vote for me for mayor and you'll get a root cellar. Note that by the way, elephant garlic is a type of leek. It's not a true garlic 

Farmer Fred  27:20

Finding accurate information about growing garlic can be rather difficult. One good online source is a catalogue company called Filaree Farm. They specialize in garlic. They have a lot of good garlic tips in their catalog, and online at FilareeFarm.com. We'll have a link to them in the show notes today. Two great books on the subject: Growing Great Garlic by Ron Engeland; and, the Complete Book of Garlic by Ted Jordan Meredith. And we'll have links to those books in today's show notes as well. Another good online source is the University of Minnesota. Yes, we will have a link there, too. It's garlic harvest time. Let's get to it. 

Farmer Fred  28:02

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