The government, for the past year, has overstated joblessness by 818,000 jobs. That revision comes on top of the monthly revisions already made. It is probably not a conspiracy to help Joe Biden and Kamala Harris look good or they would have waited until after the election, not before early voting, to announce the revision. But it is troubling that the government data was off by so much and equally as troubling that politicians and the press together have lectured Americans that the public did not know what they knew. Last week, former CNN host Don Lemon went to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to interview people on the boardwalk about the election. One man said he made more money under Donald Trump. Lemon proceeded to tell the man he was wrong because “the data” show Americans are doing better now. Lemon behaved like much of the press and so many Democratic politicians. If you tell the press you are worse off now than you were four years ago, the press claim you have been spun into believing lies. But the lie was that the economy and job creation were far better than they were. Americans knew. The experts got it wrong and the press enforced groupthink by the expert class. Where once an American’s lived experience had to be accurately captured by the press, when that experience conflicts with the popular narrative, the narrative must prevail over the truth. The narrative, these days, favors whatever it will take to keep Trump out of office. The narrative is we have won the fight against inflation as a nation. Never mind that salaries are only starting to grow again and prices are still increasing, just not as fast. A 3% increase after a 30% increase is not much of a victory for working Americans. It is everything to the Democrat elite and press. The pattern is consistent. Americans should not believe their eyes or experience. They should believe what they are told. Only when everyone collectively sees the same thing at the same time does it become too inconvenient for the press and politicians to keep lying. Everyone seeing Biden onstage at the CNN debate was just much too much. He had to be discarded. But pay no attention to the same people tossing Biden overboard begging Biden, only a year ago, to replace Harris because of her weaknesses as a candidate. This week, Americans are being told the “vibe” has shifted to Harris and the Democrats are back. We are, at best, back to polling in February that had a tied race and key swing states leaning to the Republicans. Pay no attention to Trump historically outperforming his polling by a few percentage points. Pay attention only to the shift to Harris. Pay no attention to Tim Walz’s lies about his family’s use of IVF, his military record, the arrest rates in Minneapolis after the 2020 riots, or how long he kept kids out of Minnesota schools. But pay extreme attention to JD Vance going to Yale, just not to how he got there or from whence he came. The elite and press are beclowning themselves. The Bureau of Labor Statistics performs an annual audit of data in August every year looking back over the prior year’s data to make sure its numbers are accurate. Financial institutions have known for some time the numbers would come back and be revised downward substantially after month-over-month annual revisions downward. Still, the government’s revision was the largest revision in the data since 2009. Reporters lecturing Americans on how well off they are even if they do not feel like it should probably pause a bit and reflect. They will not, of course. They never do. Meanwhile, Republicans have yet another issue that they can put forward to the public. The economy has not been firing on all cylinders. Fewer jobs were created than claimed. And Harris’ first day on the job was three-and-a-half years ago. The message matters. The “vibe” may favor the Democrats. The data favors Republicans. But Republicans must press their advantage. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Experts, Media Got It Wrong: The Economy Is in Far Worse Shape Than We Thought appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The 2023-2024 campaign season is not just the strangest on record, it’s also arguably the most anti-democratic. Ostensibly, the Democratic Party has claimed over the last decade that former President Donald Trump posed a continued and existential threat to the republic. That allegation subsequently justified a variety of anti-democratic means to neuter his first two presidential candidacies, his presidency, and now his third and final run for the White House. A near decade ago, we witnessed the 2015-2016 Hillary Clinton / Democratic National Committee / FBI-assisted effort to plant the false accusation of Trump-Russian collusion to warp the 2016 election. That gambit centered around the fraudulent Steele dossier and nearly fatally crippled the Trump 2016 campaign. That hoax would later sidetrack 22 months of his presidency before being proven a fantasy. On the eve of the 2020 election, the left next birthed the Russian laptop disinformation campaign. That hoax also warped a presidential debate with false charges that Hunter Biden’s own incriminating laptop was once again the work of Russians seeking to conspire with Trump. Those unusual efforts continued during the Biden administration. For the first time in election history, the allies of one campaign sought to persuade some 16 states to try to remove a major party’s likely nominee from their primary and general election ballots. The plan was to smother a Trump third presidential bid in its infancy, and thus once again not allow the people to accept or reject his candidacy. Nearly simultaneously, four federal, state, and local prosecutors filed dozens of felony charges against Trump. They all shared some strange similarities. These indictments would likely not have been filed had Trump not run for office. Nor would any of them have proceeded had Trump not been a controversial conservative Republican seeking reelection. Almost all the charges had not been filed against any other prior candidate, and rarely a private citizen. Some of them could just as easily have been lodged against President Joe Biden and his son. Some indictments and convictions may still achieve their objectives of bankrupting, jailing, or keeping Trump inert during the final weeks of the campaign. One of the Georgia prosecutors had undisclosed meetings with the Biden White House counsel. Biden himself, on the eve of the federal prosecutor Jack Smith’s indictment, all but declared his campaign rival, Trump, guilty. Biden’s own chief of the White House had also met privately and secretly with Smith. In an unprecedented fashion, Smith rushed his prosecution to ensure it synchronized with the 2024 campaign. Similar federal charges could just as easily have led to the indictment of Biden—if the special counsel in that case had not claimed that he could not convince a jury to convict a culpable but cognitively challenged Biden. Another Biden prosecutor mysteriously left his top position at the Justice Department to join the Alvin Bragg Manhattan prosecutorial staff. Nonetheless, Trump had survived collusion, disinformation, de-balloting, lawfare, and a subsequent assassination attempt to surge far ahead of Biden in the June presidential polls. Biden’s poll collapse prompted Democratic donors and high-ranking politicos to force a stress-test presidential debate before either candidate was even nominated at their respective conventions. When Biden imploded in the debate, a supposedly once-fit president was suddenly declared impaired. And a previously uninspiring Vice President Kamala Harris was abruptly transmogrified into a superb replacement candidate. Biden was forced to resign his candidacy to save his last five months in office from a Democrat-threatened removal via the 25th Amendment. The primary votes of nearly 15 million voters were abruptly nullified. Harris, who had neither won a primary nor a single delegate through an election, was suddenly coronated as the new Biden-replacement candidate—and without an open convention contest or vote. The donor-politico class further decided that, like a challenged Biden in 2024, Harris could not be allowed to hold press conferences. She would do few, if any, live interviews; unscripted town halls; or any other venue, given fears her visible liabilities might endanger her candidacy. So, the party that had proclaimed democracy dies in darkness now favors the shadows as the preferable means to obtain and retain power—whether by ignoring primary voters, open conventions, or transparent venues with the voters. Add up the last decade’s purchased collusion caper, unprecedented two impeachments, orchestrated disinformation hoax, efforts to de-ballot Trump, warping of the legal system to jail him and destroy his candidacy, forced removal of an unpopular but unwilling Biden from the Democratic ticket, virtual anointing of Harris by fiat in his place, and the current collusion with a compliant media to avoid public scrutiny and cross-examination of Harris. And the conclusion? Have those who lectured us about democracy in danger now decided to save it by destroying it? (C)2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Who Is ‘Destroying Democracy in Darkness?’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

“Kamala Harris Is No Communist, Socialist, or Nixon,” Jill Lawrence assures us. OK. But are we sure? Not that anyone’s asked me, but as someone who regularly accuses progressives of being “commies,” I think I can help shed some light on why many voters are getting the wrong idea. For one thing, handing self-professed socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez prime-time slots at the Democratic National Convention could send some independent voters mixed signals. Nominating a vice-presidential candidate who not only honeymooned in Red China on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre but once taught high school kids that the Maoist system—one of the most (if not the most) murderous and dehumanizing regimes in history—is a place where “everyone shares” and gets free food and housing? That wasn’t helpful, either. All that said, you definitely don’t want to make one of the pillars of your economic plan price controls. Kamala Harris certainly isn’t the first politician to suggest controlling politically inconvenient prices, but history has conclusively proven that price caps cause shortages, hoarding, black markets and an array of other unpleasant outcomes. If you’re going to rationalize this policy by blaming the kulaks of “price gouging” and peddling the age-old notion that cabals of bad guys in competitive markets can get together and dictate prices, it’s going to raise alarm bells. There isn’t a scintilla of evidence that “price gouging”—a conveniently elastic term, to begin with—exists. Big Grocery is one of the least lucrative big businesses in America with a profit margin consistently under 2%—in fact, this year it was 1.18, a figure that lands on the lower end of the historical profit spectrum. While there’s nothing wrong with making a healthy profit, consistent margins tell us that price spikes are propelled by inflation, not some insidious plot. Until the government shutdown of the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic, grocery prices had been low and dropping. Probably because Big Grocery is also one of the most competitive industries in the country, with numerous national chains, regional chains, higher-end markets, affordable big-box chains and online competitors, including Amazon. Yet we’re supposed to believe that one day, just as overall inflation happened to hit a 40-year high, everyone in grocery business decided to get together and collude to raise prices in a manner that was consistent with overall inflation? They think you’re idiots. In an embarrassing Axios defense of Harris’ plan, headlined “Don’t call it price controls: How price gouging bans really work,” Emily Peck contends that “Harris’ economic proposals, broadly speaking, are meant to help middle-class Americans deal with a higher cost of living.” Oh, is that what they’re meant to do? Axios assures us that states already have innocuous anti-gouging laws on the books for emergencies. (Yes, those are also completely counterproductive. “Price gouging” during emergency shortages helps alleviate hoarding.) In any event, to stress the innocuous and ubiquitous nature of anti-“price gouging” laws, Peck is compelled to rely on the expertise of far-left Fordham University law professor Zephyr Teachout, as one assumes no self-respecting economist would go on the record defending price caps. Which brings me to The New York Times’ Paul Krugman, who argues Harris really isn’t backing price controls, per se, but merely a ban on “price gouging on groceries”—which he surely knows is a myth. Harris’ plan is nothing but a “populist political gesture,” the Nobel Prize-winning economist explains. Since the presidential candidate hasn’t offered any concrete plans, we must assume she still supports enacting Elizabeth Warren’s Price Gouging Prevention Act, which, despite the assurances of Axios and Krugman, would imbue the Federal Trade Commission with wide-ranging unilateral federal authority to dictate prices on groceries. And if you believe government regulatory agencies will judiciously use this power, I have news for you. So, sure, it’s a bad sign that Harris intends to fight inflation using failed socialist policy prescriptions. Let’s not forget, though, the last time Harris vowed to help fix inflation, she was the “tie-breaking vote” on the effort to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into an overheated economy. It’s fair to say that inflation is a complex, multifaceted issue that isn’t entirely any one entity’s fault. You don’t need to be a socialist lawyer from Fordham to understand that the Biden administration did everything to exacerbate inflation—ignoring warning signs, cramming through a massive partisan spending bill using parliamentary tricks, all the while undermining energy production. Last I heard, Kamala was a member of that administration. Has Harris proposed price caps on groceries because she’s a devout Marxist? Unlikely. The power-hungry politician’s tendency to embrace collectivist and zero-sum economic thinking is merely a sign of an authoritarian demagogue. Kamala is not Stalin. She’s more like some middling Latin American dictator. That’s bad enough. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Yes, Kamala’s Price Controls Lead to Socialism appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Classes are underway again at The George Washington University in the nation’s capital amid renewed anti-Israel demonstrations on campus. DMV Students for Justice in Palestine, a coalition of anti-Israel, pro-Palestine groups, led a march through GW’s campus Thursday night, demonstrating outside the home of university President Ellen Granberg. They’re back ??@DMVSJP leading a pro-Palestine procession through George Washington Univerity’s campus right now. The fall semester started TODAY. pic.twitter.com/1mN6fptn1A— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyJr1) August 22, 2024 Classes resumed Thursday at GW. Last spring, GW students joined outside anti-Israel groups to establish an illegal encampment in University Yard from late April to early May. This coalition of pro-Palestine demonstrators demanded that GW divest from all companies doing business with the Jewish state. At its height, the anti-Israel encampment, or “Liberation Zone,” comprised over 50 tents. ?A quick tour of the pro-Palestine encampment on the campus of George Washington University in D.C. pic.twitter.com/rHrj1j5AG1— Virginia Allen (@Virginia_Allen5) April 29, 2024 In an online welcome letter to students dated Monday, Granberg and other university administrators touched on the Nov. 5 presidential election, calling it a “pivotal moment” in the nation’s history. The George Washington University is one of the 10 top most politically active schools in the U.S., according to The Princeton Review. Over the summer, Granberg and other GW administrators reflected on last semester’s pro-Palestine demonstrations. GW released a new iteration of its existing Plan to Strengthen our Community. The plan, first unveiled in January, lists examples of permitted and prohibited “Expressive Activities.” Prohibited activities seemingly draw inspiration from last spring’s pro-Palestine, anti-Israel episode. Among them: —“Engaging in harassing conduct, including uttering statements directed to others on the basis of their race or national origin (including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics) or other protected characteristics.” —“Occupying university premises after being directed by university officials to disperse.” In November, the university suspended GW Students for Justice in Palestine, a leading anti-Israel student, when members of the group projected antisemitic slogans on the university library. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that university officials suspended other prominent anti-Israel student groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace, ahead of the fall semester, effectively revoking campus funding from the groups. These student groups surfaced at GW and other university campuses across the nation after Hamas terrorists went on a rampage of rape, torture, and murder Oct. 7 in southern Israel, leaving 1,200 dead and taking 250 hostages. Hamas is the elected government of the adjacent Gaza Strip, where Israel since has conducted military operations to root out the terrorist organization. The Daily Signal asked GW about the status on campus of GW Students for Justice in Palestine. “GW takes seriously our commitment to free expression, ensuring the safety of our community, and maintaining our education and research missions,” a university spokesperson said, adding: “As is appropriate for institutions of higher education, GW also has an obligation to address violations of university policy, and does so without regard to the content of the message those demonstrating seek to advance. It does so through a Code of Student Conduct that provides a fair review process that includes student peers.” According to the university’s Division for Student Affairs, the chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine is on disciplinary probation, meaning it no longer is in “good judicial standing” and may be excluded from co-curricular activities. Students for Justice in Palestine may host a limited number of social events or other activities that include alcohol. The sanction is set to expire in December. Students for Justice in Palestine GW’s chapter didn’t respond to the Daily Signal’s questions sent Wednesday via social media. Neither did GW Hillel, the largest Jewish student organization on campus, whose members organized a counterprotest to last spring’s encampment. “First Amendment protections do not apply to GW students, faculty or staff,” according to GW’s “community” plan, because it is a private university. GW administrators crafted their own free expression guidelines, featured in the revised Plan to Strengthen Our Community. In the document, the university places limitations on expression, saying that   speech is not protected when it rises to the level of prohibited harassment based on a person’s protected characteristic (examples include age, disability, ethnicity/national origin, gender, race, religion/faith tradition, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, and many others) as defined by state, local, and federal anti-discrimination laws and university policies. NPR and other outlets reported that Jewish Voice for Peace’s national chapter breached Capitol Hill security July 24, the day Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to a joint meeting of Congress. Hundreds of protesters flooded into the Cannon House Office Building. U.S. Capitol Police told The Daily Signal on Aug.16 that the agency arrested 248 protesters that day, charging them with crowding, obstructing, or incommoding under D.C. law (Section 22-1307). The post GW Braces for New Pro-Palestine Protests in Nation’s Capital appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Do you dream of delicious homegrown garlic, straight from your garden to the kitchen? Come learn how to successfully grow garlic at home! This post will cover everything you need to know to grow the best crop possible: when and how to plant garlic cloves, where to get seeds, tips for soil prep, our “secret soak”, disease control, and more. The best news is: garlic is easy to grow in any climate. It even does well in pots, perfect for container gardens. The key is choosing the right type of garlic for your location, so we’ll talk about the difference between softneck and hardneck garlic varieties too. I hope this guide will help make all of your homegrown garlic dreams come true! RELATED: If you’ve already planted your garlic and need tips on harvesting, curing, and storage, see How and When to Harvest Garlic for more detailed information. Disclosure: Homestead and Chill is reader-supported. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.  When to Plant Garlic Garlic is cool-season crop which takes about 8 months to grow from seed (cloves) to harvest. Garlic is usually planted in the fall, sometime between late September to late November depending on your climate. Mid-October is a safe bet for most locations. See our planting calendars below for more information. They’re available for every growing zone! After planting, the cloves should begin to sprout in the fall, and also start to establish their root systems. They’ll go dormant over the winter (in freezing climates), resume growth in the spring, and be ready to harvest early to midsummer. If you miss the window for fall planting, you can also plant garlic cloves in late winter to early spring, as soon as your soil thaws enough to work. However, fall planted garlic will produce bigger, superior bulbs. Here on the Central Coast of California, we often wait to plant our garlic in late January to help avoid garlic rust, a persistent fungal disease in our area. Get free planting calendars for every USDA hardiness zone here Where to Buy Garlic Seed Garlic doesn’t grow from typical tiny garden seeds. Instead, garlic is grown by planting individual garlic cloves, just like the ones you peel and cook for dinner! Each single garlic clove that is planted will grow into a new large head or bulb of garlic with 5 to 12 paper-wrapped cloves. Even though you won’t plant garlic until fall, it’s a good idea to plan ahead and buy garlic seed (cloves) in advance. Most online retailers do pre-orders for garlic during the summer, and will ship it out in late summer to early fall. Some reputable places to buy garlic seed include High Mowing Seeds, Botanical Interests, Seeds Now, Peaceful Valley, or Adaptive Seeds to name a few. In addition to ordering online, garlic seed is sometimes available for sale at our local Farm Supply or Ace Hardware nursery thought the varieties are limited.In a pinch, you can plant organic garlic cloves from the grocery store, but then you can’t choose varieties suited for your zone (stores usually sell softneck). If you do go this route, I emphasize: get organic! Non-organic produce is often irradiated or treated with sprouting inhibitors that can hinder success. Check your farmer’s market too. The garlic they sell locally should grow well in your region. Choosing Garlic Varieties to Plant There are dozens of varieties of garlic to choose from. Inchelium Red, Music, German White, Creole, Spanish Roja, and California Early White are a few popular options. Some are more spicy or mild, better for storage, larger or smaller bulbs, or earlier-maturing. However, out of all of the many types, garlic will fall into one of two categories: hardneck or softneck (explained below). It’s essential to choose the right type for your climate! A softneck Inchelium Red (our favorite!) on the bottom, and a hardneck Moroccan Creole on top. Softneck vs Hardneck Garlic Here are a number of key differences between hardneck and softneck garlic varieties: Climate: Hardneck varieties tend to thrive in regions with more harsh freezing winters. They require a greater period of vernalization, or prolonged exposure to cold temperatures. On the other hand, softneck varieties tend to do best in regions with significantly milder winters, like here on the Central Coast of California. Softneck garlic can grow and survive with some freezing temperatures though! Especially if provided a good deep layer of mulch for added protection. Number of cloves: Softneck garlic varieties usually produce a larger bulb, with more individually-wrapped cloves inside. In contrast, hardneck garlic typically has fewer individual cloves, but each clove can be larger, with thinner skin that is easier to peel. Storage Potential: Because softneck garlic cloves are so tightly wrapped, they have a longer shelf life: up to 9 months when cured and stored properly. On the more tender side, hardneck garlic has a shorter storage life, usually lasting only 3 to 4 months post-harvest and curing. Therefore, you’ll want to use it, re-plant some as seed, or preserve it within that time frame. Scapes: Close to harvest time, hardneck garlic will grow an edible flowering stem called a garlic scape. Garlic scapes are like delicious garlic-flavored, long tender green beans – an awesome addition to pesto or any meal! Softneck garlic does not produce scapes. For even more information, please see this guide: The Difference Between Softneck and Hardneck Garlic. It also explores the top 12 garlic varieties! Preparing Garlic Seed to Plant Once you have your garlic seed, carefully break apart the whole bulbs into individual cloves. Leave the papery cover on each clove though! Removing the paper can make the cloves rot more readily in the soil. It is recommended to break up the bulbs at least a day or two before planting to give them time to dry out. If you have more seed than you can plant, select the largest cloves of garlic to plant! Big cloves are said to produce the largest bulbs. Vernalization Garlic requires a period of vernalization, or exposure to cold temperatures below 40 to 45°F for several weeks. This chilling period helps to stimulate strong root development, sprouting, and growth. Hardneck garlic varieties are especially dependent on vernalization, often requiring up to two months of cold exposure, though three to five weeks is usually adequate for most varieties. In most places, vernalization happens naturally while the garlic is in the garden soil over the cold winter months. However, if you live somewhere with temperate winter weather, you can “fake” vernalization by putting your garlic seed cloves in the refrigerator for several weeks (I recommend at least a month) prior to planting to help ensure success. Soaking Garlic Cloves Before Planting (optional) Prior to planting garlic, we typically soak our garlic cloves in a mixture of seaweed extract and baking soda. This optional step helps provide the garlic seed with additional nutrients and anti-fungal ingredients, helping to jump-start sprouting and fight disease! With this, our garlic always sprouts within just a matter of days. To create a garlic clove soak, combine 1 Tbsp of baking soda and 2 Tbsp of liquid seaweed per gallon of water. Given the modest amount of garlic we plant (about two pounds of cloves) we only make a quarter of the recipe, using 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda and a ½ tablespoon of seaweed extract per quart jar of water. In a pinch, you can also use kelp meal instead of liquid seaweed extract – just double the amount. Mix well, distribute into your soaking vessels of choice, and add the garlic cloves. Soak the garlic seed in this solution for several hours or even overnight, but no more than 18 hours. We keep each variety separate in it’s own marked container to keep track. One final optional step is to give the garlic cloves a quick dunk in rubbing alcohol (just for a minute or two) prior to planting to help further kill any bacteria or fungal spores that may be present. This is particularly useful if you’re re-planting garlic harvested from your own garden, where the likelihood of disease may be higher than fresh seed garlic.  Soaking garlic cloves in kelp meal, baking soda, and water before planting. Where to Plant Garlic Garlic grows best in a location with full sun, or at least 6 hours of direct sunlight per day. If you’re not using raised garden beds, choose a spot in the ground that doesn’t easily collect and pool water, which can lead to rotting. Avoid planting garlic in the same place year after year, or in the same location that other alliums like onions were recently grown. Good crop rotation practices are important to help prevent disease, pests, and nutrient deficiencies! Garlic makes a great companion plant to grow near tomatoes, lettuce, carrots and members of the cabbage family, but isn’t as compatible to plant near peas or beans. Soil Preparation Garlic thrives in rich, loose, well-draining soil. If your soil is compact and dense, loosen it to about a foot deep and consider adding some potting soil, horticultural sand, and/or pumice to fluff it up. Before planting, work in several inches of organic compost to your chosen planting location, along with a top dressing of slow-release organic fertilizer. Go fairly light on the fertilizer at the planting stage however, and plan to add more in the spring.  Planting Depth and Spacing Plant each garlic clove 2 inches deep, about 4 to 6 inches apart. I usually pre-poke all the planting holes in the designated bed, and then pop in each clove one by one.  Place the garlic clove in the hole with the flat root end down and the pointy end facing up. For larger varieties like Elephant garlic (which is actually a member of the leek family), provide more spacing between the cloves – up to 12 inches apart, and 4 to 6 inches deep. Garlic seed companies should also include planting instructions with spacing guidelines for you to follow. Mulching Garlic In cold northern climates, it’s important to apply several inches (4 to 6 inches) of loose deep mulch on top of the soil to protect garlic over winter. Straw, shredded leaves, grass clippings, and fluffy well-aged compost are all good mulch options. Apply the mulch before the first hard freeze. There is no need to remove the mulch in spring however – it will help to suppress spring weeds too! Since we live in an area with mild but rainy winters (frost and hard freezes are rare here), we skip the deep mulch so the bulbs won’t stay soggy and accidentally rot. Instead, we apply just a modest layer (an inch or two) of compost mulch on top. Rather than going dormant, our garlic continues to slowly grow through winter. Young garlic just starting to sprout up. We use compost and a fine woody “soil building conditioner” as mulch in our raised beds. Water Garlic enjoys routine deep water, but not too much. Allow the top inch or two of soil to dry out between watering. If it’s raining, snowing, or otherwise damp in the winter, do not apply additional water. It’s important to not overwater so the bulbs won’t rot, especially when the garlic isn’t actively growing over winter! Once spring comes and temperatures rise, maintain the soil evenly moist but not soggy. Fertilizer Garlic is a fairly heavy feeder. Once things start to warm up in the spring, add a fresh layer of compost between the rows and/or a side-dressing of balanced slow-release organic fertilizer. This will give them some much-needed energy as they begin to fatten up! We also try to water our garden with either dilute seaweed extract or homemade compost tea a couple times throughout the summer growing season to support overall soil health. Growing Garlic in Pots Garlic grows quite well in pots! In addition to raised garden beds, we’ve planted garlic in various containers over the years including in Earth Box planters, 15-gallon grow bags and half wine barrel planters. To grow garlic in a pot, follow the same tips provided in this guide: use moderately rich but well-draining soil (such as quality potting soil), fertilize once at the time of planting and again in spring, provide full sun, routine water, and deep mulch during winter. Ensure the container has excellent drainage since garlic will rot if the soil becomes water-logged. A simple moisture meter can help you determine how wet (or dry) the soil in your pot is before watering again. FAQ: What size pot is best for garlic? That depends on how much garlic you want to plant! Keeping in mind that garlic cloves should be spaced 4 to 6 inches apart, I recommend using a wide container with ample surface area (as opposed to a deep narrow pot) to maximize the number of garlic cloves you can plant. Garlic has fairly shallow roots (but needs to be planted 2 inches deep), so choose a pot that is at least 8 to 10 inches deep. My friend Rose’s @little_rose81 hardneck garlic, grown in large containers in her Ottawa Canada garden Rose’s @little_rose81 potted garlic harvest Garlic Diseases and Pests Thankfully, most common garden pests prefer to stay away from garlic. In fact, garlic is often used as a companion plant to naturally deter pests instead! Aphids did attack our garlic crop one year, but that was only because the plants were already stressed (we forgot to turn on the automatic irrigation – oops!) and struggling plants are always more attractive to pests. On the other hand garlic is prone to several diseases, including Basal Rot, White Rot, Downy Mildew, Botrytis Rot, Penicillium Decay and more. Cornell University explains that “most of the major garlic diseases are soil-born, so proper site assessment and yearly rotations are crucial in maintaining a healthy garden of garlic.” The only disease we’ve personally encountered is garlic rust. Garlic rust is a fungal disease that only affects the allium family (garlic, onions, leeks, and shallots) and causes orange rusty-looking spots on the leaves. It is common in humid, damp conditions like we often have in the winter, and is virtually impossible to treat organically once it appears. Minor cases are mostly a cosmetic nuisance, but severe infections can lead to decreased bulb size and lessened life in storage. Despite our best crop rotation efforts, we usually end up with some rust. If it’s really bad, we sometimes have to harvest our garlic early (resulting in green garlic) to prevent the spread of rust spores. Here in California, we’ve also learned that we can successfully prevent (or at least greatly reduce) garlic rust by planting our garlic in late January instead of fall! A pretty severe case of garlic rust in our garden A harvest of immature garlic (aka green garlic) when the garlic rust was too bad to let it continue to grow. Learn all about ways to use and preserve green garlic here. Harvest, Curing and Storage Garlic is typically harvested in early to midsummer. Close to harvest time, the garlic leaves start to turn yellow or brown, shrivel, and dry up, and you can also feel developed bulbs below the soil. It’s important to stop watering garlic for a couple weeks prior to harvest, which helps it start to dry out for curing. After harvest, garlic should be cured for several weeks (with the green tops and roots still in tact) to prepare it for long-term dry storage. Please visit our detailed guide on How to Harvest, Cure and Store Garlic for more information. It also includes some of our favorite ways to preserve garlic, such as making homemade garlic powder or fermented garlic honey. And that’s how to plant and grow garlic. So, what do you think? Are you going to grow hardneck garlic, softneck, or maybe a little of both? I hope you found this article to be interesting and informative! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments below. May you be blessed with delicious homegrown garlic. Don’t miss these related articles: When to Harvest Garlic, Plus Curing and Storage Tips The Difference Between Hardneck and Softneck Garlic + Top 12 Varieties Easy Fermented Garlic Honey Recipe + Benefits and Uses Roasted Two-Bite Garlic & Herb Smashed Potatoes Preserving Garlic: How to Make Homemade Garlic Powder Did you enjoy this article? Want to hear more? Stay in touch! Sign up below to receive weekly updates on new posts from Homestead and Chill. The post How to Plant and Grow Garlic: The Ultimate Guide appeared first on Homestead and Chill.

A woman from Chicago says that a veterinarian at Banfield Pet Hospital spayed her dog instead of the teeth cleaning the dog was scheduled for on Monday, August 05.

Watch the Protection Racket Media Get 'Tough' With Kamala

Secret Service Agents Placed on Leave Over Trump Assassination Attempt

Democrats Are Convinced the Media Is Being Too Tough on Kamala Harris

The government, for the past year, has overstated joblessness by 818,000 jobs. That revision comes on top of the monthly revisions already made. It is probably not a conspiracy to help Joe Biden and Kamala Harris look good or they would have waited until after the election, not before early voting, to announce the revision. But it is troubling that the government data was off by so much and equally as troubling that politicians and the press together have lectured Americans that the public did not know what they knew. Last week, former CNN host Don Lemon went to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to interview people on the boardwalk about the election. One man said he made more money under Donald Trump. Lemon proceeded to tell the man he was wrong because “the data” show Americans are doing better now. Lemon behaved like much of the press and so many Democratic politicians. If you tell the press you are worse off now than you were four years ago, the press claim you have been spun into believing lies. But the lie was that the economy and job creation were far better than they were. Americans knew. The experts got it wrong and the press enforced groupthink by the expert class. Where once an American’s lived experience had to be accurately captured by the press, when that experience conflicts with the popular narrative, the narrative must prevail over the truth. The narrative, these days, favors whatever it will take to keep Donald Trump out of office. The narrative is we have won the fight against inflation as a nation. Never mind that salaries are only starting to grow again and prices are still increasing, just not as fast. A 3% increase after a 30% increase is not much of a victory for working Americans. It is everything to the Democrat elite and press. The pattern is consistent. Americans should not believe their eyes or experience. They should believe what they are told. Only when everyone collectively sees the same thing at the same time does it become too inconvenient for the press and politicians to keep lying. Everyone seeing Biden onstage at the CNN debate was just much too much. He had to be discarded. But pay no attention to the same people tossing Biden overboard begging Biden, only a year ago, to replace Harris because of her weaknesses as a candidate This week, Americans are being told the “vibe” has shifted to Harris and the Democrats are back. We are, at best, back to polling in February that had a tied race and key swing states leaning to the Republicans. Pay no attention to Donald Trump historically outperforming his polling by a few percentage points. Pay attention only to the shift to Harris. Pay no attention to Tim Walz’s lies about his family’s use of IVF, his military record, the arrest rates in Minneapolis after the 2020 riots or how long he kept kids out of Minnesota schools. But pay extreme attention to JD Vance going to Yale, just not to how he got there or from whence he came. The elite and press are beclowning themselves. The Bureau of Labor Statistics performs an annual audit of data in August every year looking back over the prior year’s data to make sure its numbers are accurate. Financial institutions have known for some time the numbers would come back and be revised downward substantially after month over month annual revisions downward. Still, the government’s revision was the largest revision in the data since 2009. Reporters lecturing Americans on how well off they are even if they do not feel like it should probably pause a bit and reflect. They will not, of course. They never do. Meanwhile, Republicans have yet another issue that they can put forward to the public. The economy has not been firing on all cylinders. Fewer jobs were created than claimed. And Harris’ first day on the job was 3 1/2 years ago. The message matters. The “vibe” may favor the Democrats. The data favors Republicans. But Republicans must press their advantage.