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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Green Grow the Garlics-O
  • Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 16:03:55 EDT

Etymologists found the Spanish word 'gringo' to be a bit baffling. Some
suggest that it is a corruption of 'Greigo' (Greek) and by extension
'foreigner'.
But that doesn't expain why the word did not appear in the language until the
mid 1800's and appeared first in Mexico and spread from hence. The most
picturesque and actually most likely origin of the word comes from the
Manifest
Destiny war with Mexico in 1846. A popular song at the time was Burns' poem
"Green Grow the Rushes-0" set to a popular tune. (Some say it was another
song,
"Green Grow the Lilies"). Soldiers, many of them by the bye, Irish, were
constantly letting go of snippets of the song, especially the chorus:

"Green grow the rushes-o
Green grow the rushes-o
The finest hours I ever spent
Were spent among the lasses-o"

(someone needed to buy Burns a rhyming dictionary)

So the soldiers came to be know as "Green-Grows", or more easily pronounced
in Spanish "gringos".

I wanted to remind gardeners to not miss the wonderful spring treat of green
garlic. Conventional gardening advice says that garlic cloves should have
been planted last fall, October or so, in order to harvest garlic this fall
in
September or so. Didn't plant any, well, a whole year without garlic then!

Not really. Plant garlic right now. Get some bulbs bulk from the mart
($2.19 /lb here), split them apart, and plant them like onion sets. The
garlic
grows somewhat like onions except that it is not day lenght sensitive, but
rather
opportunistic. It will grow leaves to a certain point, quit, and begin
growing the bulb. As long as it's growing the leaves, you can pull the
entire
plant and use it like a scallion. Any surplus easily dehydrate for later.

After the bulb begins forming, the leaves become very tough. When? This
guide isn't exact but the indifidual leaves will point up, and at some point
will
bend over and point down. Eat them before the leaves start pointing down.

If you grew garlics last year and missed harvesting any of the bulbs, you
will see a crown of green coming up about now where each clove is sending up
leaves. Gently unearth the whole bulb, split it apart, and transplant the
individual plants. It will grow almost exactly as if you'd planted the clove.

Mature garlic bulbs like you put away last fall or bought at the grocery will
keep in good shape for months. Plant some garlic every two or three weeks
and you will have green garlic for stir fry, soup, side veggie, and salads
the
whole year.


James </HTML>




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