It has been MANY months and we have finally harvested about half the garlic.  “Why only half?” you ask.  Well, some varieties have matured quicker than others.  Really this is a blessing in disguise since we do not have enough space to cure any more than what we did harvest.  The curing process involves hanging the garlic to dry somewhere dry and cool and out of the sun.  So even with new fancy curtains, the greenhouse is flat out as a location.  We had old metal shelves and we attached them to the walls inside the back door. These racks are now full with 113 heads of garlic. 
 
Now, when I planted, I made a map of what I type I planted where.  This has become very important now that we harvested.  This map shows me what I am harvesting at the time.  As I strung them into groups for hanging, I attached a simple paper tag with the name on it.  These tags all function and does not have to be fancy.  These tags will be in the garden and will get dirty. Later, after the garlic is cured and cleaned up, we can attach a pretty tag to it. The twine is plain food grade twine.  But the twine ball will also get dirty so do not plan on using the rest for anything other than outdoor garden use.  

We have harvested the California Softneck, Music, Pioneer Softneck, Deerfield Purple, and Krandasger varieties.  The Duganski, Silver Rose, and Chesnok all appear to need a couple more weeks.
In the mean time this has opened up nearly half the garden and I have replaced the garlic with peppers, tomatillos, and tomatoes.

There are lots of opportunities for DIY in a garden.  Sure, growing your own veggies and flowers is already firmly inside in the “do it yourself” realm, but we can create more than just plants for a garden.  We can find ways to reduce our waste and save some money on purchasing new items when we find ways to rework what we already have.

Up-cycled Yard Art.
This year I started looking more creatively at some odd items I have in the shed.  The potato tire growing experiment did not work as well as I had hoped.  We got a few potatoes but not enough to justify the time, space, and seed.  We also had some old metal items that were just rusting away.  I decided to repurpose these into some low-cost decorations and planters.  For the cost of three cans of spray paint and some metal wall art, I now have two upcycled decorations in the garden.  The paint color choices were totally a last-minute decision.  Once I got to the hardware store, I saw Rustoleum has a line of farm equipment colors.  That was too perfect to pass up! I grabbed the Troy-Bilt Red, John Deere Yellow, and the Husqvarna orange. 

To add a more interest I purchased some metal garden are and attached them with metal wire.

 Greenhouse Curtains
The greenhouse has gotten a much-needed improvement as well.  A greenhouse is very useful in early spring and fall because it does a great job of capturing and keeping heat.  But during the summer it becomes a problem as it is way to hot inside.  Like a car with the windows up, I would consider it unsafe to stay inside for long on a warm day.  Getting supplies from the greenhouse during a warm summer day is literally a run in and run back out trip.  The plants cannot be kept in the greenhouse from early to late summer since they get overheated and dry out.
When considering what to do about this I realized that all it needed some shade.  I already had some old table cloths that were stained and worn.  I bought some grommets and a grommet set and converted the old table cloths to new curtains.  We simply hung them with P-Cord through the grommets and one extra to hold up the middle.  They can be opened and closed by sliding them across the P-Cord.  This has reduced the heat build up considerably.

While the garlic is still going strong in the main garden, we decided to expand our growing capacity with raised beds this year.  Raised beds offer many advantages.  The soil can be tailored to its intended purpose.  Raised beds are also up off the ground so the gardener does not have to bend as far to reach the plants.  It is easier to build netting over a raised bed which is needed with plants such as strawberries.  They can also act as a containment system for very aggressive plants such as sunchokes (Jerusalem artichoke).
There are many different methods to making raised beds.  The idea is always the same but the materials vary.  There are lots of differing opinions on the best material.  Personally, since many materials such as wood do not hold up well, we chose to go with concrete.  The only big drawback is that the concrete blocks are hard on the back.  They are heavy and cumbersome but concrete is so durable that I should not find myself redoing this work anytime soon.
We decided to use plain concrete cinder blocks.  We bought a pallet of 108 cinder blocks.  This was enough to build three raised beds and leave a few over for some benches. 
The steps as I remember them was:

1. Place block
   
2. Check the level
   
3. Remove the block
   
4. Move some dirt around
   
5. Replace the block at which point we are really at step one again 
   

These steps are repeated till the whole bottom layer is done and level.  The next layer just sits on top and if the bottom layer is level, then the next layer(s) are easy.
 
Once the beds are built, they need to be filled with dirt.  This requires a LOT of dirt.  A few bags from the garden store will not be enough.  And bagged dirt usually has the highest cost per pound.  The easiest and most affordable solution is to bring in a bulk purchase in a truck.  From there the process is to just move the dirt in with the wheelbarrow and a shovel.  We filled these beds with 2 cubic yards of garden soil from a local landscaping company.