Updates on previous projects – Part 2
Garlic – Here’s a quick update on our garlic planting. In the Fall of 2008 we planted out our first ever garlic cloves. The cloves were purchased from Morgan County Seeds and I’m unsure of the variety, other than Softneck. Morgan County has great prices on garlic and a pound there costs about $3 compared to Johnny’s and Seed Savers $13 or $15 per pound. We ordered 3 pounds, but ended up planting only 2 pounds after sharing some with friends. I figured 3lbs to be around 240 individual cloves. In hindsight, we planted the cloves the first of October and that seems to be too early for our Zone 6B/7A. By late November and into early December we had fairly robust sprouts that were probably 3-5″ in height.
Now that I’ve done some more reading about garlic I realize that the idea for the Fall planting is to establish vigorous roots, but no real sprouts. Anyway, things were great until the early Spring when we had some guys take down a large oak for us and instead of dropping the tree out in the center of the lot, which seemed easy to do, they dropped it right on top of our garlic patch. I considered the entire planting to be a lost cause after seeing these guys trample all over the beds and the large limbs that gouged the dirt.
To my surprise however the garlic took it in stride. By late Spring the garlic was growing great and we only lost maybe 10-20% of the planting. I was pretty shocked. Fast forward to mid-July of 2009 and we were harvesting nice looking bulbs. We ended up with about 125 bulbs and they ranged from large to small. The overall planting seemed to be consistent in size and I think the problem was more of the trampling and tree damage. All in all though, for our meager $10 in expense we reaped a massive harvest. Also, the bulbs were grown totally organic with no added chemical fertilizers or herbicides. I lightly sprinkle some home made compost and that seemed to be plenty. Here’s a pic of a small batch that we harvested…
So now fast forward to the current and here’s what we did for the Fall of 2009 planting. We purchased another 3 pounds of bulbs, this time from Southern Exposure Seed Savers. The varieties are Red Toch and Inchelium Red, both of which are supposed to be good all around varieties. We also planted 7 bulbs of what was harvested from the 2008 planting. All in all we have probably 200 cloves planted.
Here’s what we did differently this year. We forked the beds deep, added a good amount of compost and leaf mold, and planted the cloves in mid November as opposed to early October. After the original planting we’ve also added nearly 2″ of shredded leaves to act as mulch and an additional fertilizer. The later planting this year is almost right, although still a little early. The end of November might be the best time for us to plant in order to avoid any top growth. The sprouts now are minimal, 2-4″ and not as robust as the prior year’s. Here’s a small section of the current garlic beds,
All 200 cloves fit in a 30″ X 15′ bed, plus another small section in the old greenhouse that’s 4′ X 5′.
Here’s our method of planting garlic…
First step is to break the bulb into cloves, of course, and then for our 30″ wide garden beds we lay out 5 rows. We plant the cloves 6″ apart within the row, which provides plenty of room and a nice microclimate for the garlic to grow. In the early part of winter, which for us is around Christmas, we cover the garlic with a thick layer of shredded leaves. Straw or hay would work here also. In the early spring, which here is the first of March, we’ll remove the leaves and use them for our leaf mold piles.
We’ll see how this year goes, but we’ve had a good experience with garlic and the bulbs we’ve harvested are better than any we can buy locally.
