Amid all the rain and the dead seedlings and the late plantings, I’ve had an encouraging success: 87 heads of garlic!

Here’s how it all happened:

A few years ago I planted some garlic in the garden and it never quite took off. Very clay-ey soil. So I dug it all up and planted it in a garden formed by a rock wall on a hill, back filled with looser soil. Winter sun on the rocks keeps it warmish, too.

Last year, the garlic sprouted. I let the green plant-tops die back like I thought I was supposed to. But then, I couldn’t find all the garlic. Partly, I’m sure, it was because it was so small.

This year - WOW! — the greenery came up gonzo. Last weekend, I was weeding around it, and a lot of the leaves looked dead. I consulted the ridiculously comprehensive “Growing Great Garlic” - 213 pages of musings and advice, thank you — and got more confused than ever. Harvest now or later? Rinse or dry dirty?

But as I was pulling weeds, the soil seemed so loose that I grabbed ahold of a garlic top and pulled gently. Out came a big one. My husband joined in and we pulled it all. In 10 mins, we had the most amazing bounty.

The heads have been drying (slightly rinsed) on the back porch for a few days. This morning, with rain forecast, 85 of them went into a large, flat basket inside. (Two had already gone into spaghetti sauce.)

Meanwhile, we spent seven hours of gardening on Monday, a day off. We put nets around the blueberries, filled in a few blank spaces in the garden with more tomato plants and  planted more cukes, limas, string beans and okra where the critters had eaten them.

The chard seems to be the favorite of whatever’s been getting under/through/over the fence. Just nubs are left. But we covered them with netting and hope they’ll grow back. It’s pretty hardy stuff.

I finally got the eggplant seedlings into the ground, too. I sprinkled pepper all around and over them, and so far they have been immune to the critters and flea beetles. They may even be growing a bit.

This time of year it seems like all work and no pay-off.

But the older cukes and some squashes have flowers.

And some little green tomatoes are forming.

Can dinner be far behind?