We have had very little time, with all of the family birthday celebrations, funerals, work, kids, school, etc, to do all of those things which become so pressing at this time of year for us, that so few others do. Garlic has to get into the ground before the ground freezes, and with a bird hunting trip coming up, a weekend needed for getting deer hunting stands ready, and then deer hunting, this is the weekend for getting garlic in the ground in quantity.
It started with cleaning out what was a cabbage and beans bed this summer. Just as a matter of curiosity; this is why you should break apart the dirt clump and untangle the roots of plants, like this cabbage, before planting, when started early, so that they do not become root-bound. The plant produced, but I did not know why that plant was stunted. Now I know why. I was negligent in my planting.
On another interesting note; the early heads of cabbage produced second heads, in this case 3, measuring from 4″ to 6″ across. Nice to get a second crop out of them. This was Early Jersey Wakefield.
This is the bed before turning, just emptied of cabbage, bean, and weed plants.
This is the bed turned, with 50 gallons of compost spread over the top of it.
The compost is chopped and raked into the soil.
Some of my garlic cloves had started to sprout because I had forgotten about or dropped the heads when harvesting last July. Does not hurt the bulbs. Just more a curiosity than anything else.
Had a few whole heads root into the ground, sitting on top, which I gently dug out, broke apart, untangled the roots, and planted, using the green sprouted ones to mark the ends of the rows.
I use two 8′ boards when planting the rows. One to measure the planting area, and the other to kneel on as I plant.
I just keep working my way across.
That is a Spanish Rojo pictured above. I set the cloves so that the top of the clove is about 2.5-3″ under ground and about 10″ apart.
In the end, there are 2 beds with 5 rows each about 9′ long with 12 garlic bulbs in each row. Three kinds: German Brown Rocambole, Spanish Rojo, and Hearty German. Just waiting on straw to mulch it. That takes care of our own annual usage of garlic. Yes, we do eat a lot of garlic. I still have a lot to plant. We will see how that goes. If it goes well, I will photo and blog that as well. Next year, come July, I might have a LOT of garlic to harvest. We will see.
