Between Peaches and Persimmons

Right now we are between peach and persimmon seasons, which are the two busiest times of the year.  There have been a few weeks of relative quietness at the orchard, giving us time to catch up on some projects.  Tosh has spent time lately re-modeling a part of the fruit stand building to make more more room for drying persimmons inside and to have an improved public restroom.   He also dug out a spot at the edge of my garden with the back hoe for a new garlic bed.

To make a new garlic bed, I had to make a liner with aviary wire, then fill it back in with layers of compost and soil.  We plant the garlic only in the beds lined with wire this way, because otherwise gophers get in and eat most of the garlic.  Ideally, garlic shouldn't be planted in the same place for three years, so each year we should be making wire-lined beds for it to be rotated into until we have enough space.  We hadn't had time to make new beds for the garlic to be rotated into for a few years though, and it seemed like this year's garlic didn't grow as well.  Hopefully this year will be better.

In the photo below you can see the wire liner in the ground, just as it was beginning to be filled in.  If you look closely, at the edge of the bed you can see a big difference between the dusty decomposed granite soil that was dug out and the dark fluffy compost.  The soil and compost is all filled in now, so this coming weekend we can plant the garlic.