Friday, November 16, 2012

Planting More Garlic

      There is a saying that you can plant garlic on the shortest day and then harvest the bulbs on the longest day.  That should mean that I am not too late to still be planting cloves.  A friend who recently moved from our neighborhood had been growing some named garlic strains.  That is pretty cool because my garlic has been from the "three for a dollar" variety at the store, or from plants thrown away on the park compost pile.  In any event, I am pretty happy with my current garlic strains, but look forward to trying something new.

On left: Red Russian, on right: Music
      The two bulbs that my neighbor gave me were separated into the individual cloves.  The Music variety, on the right of the photo, had only seven cloves, but they were quite large.  These cloves were planted on November 10th, 2012.

Broken into individual cloves


      I cleaned up a section of bed #9, where I planted the Music cloves at the east end.  The Red Russian cloves went in the west end of bed #9.
      Today, 11/16/2012, I planted 100 cloves of my next to premium size cloves in the west end of bed #1.  I still want to put in more cloves, as it is so easy and productive to let the garlic do its thing over the winter.




5 comments:

  1. How deep do you plant the cloves? I've been toying with the idea of planting some garlic, but am not quite sure of the procedure.

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    1. Alica, please do plant some. It is not too late. I would suggest buying a couple of garlic bulbs at an organic type food store. You will pay about $5/lb instead of $18 - $20 for catalog garlic. Push the cloves into the soil root down until they are just below the soil level. I don't even bother to soil over the cloves. As they start to grow, maybe put on some fine leaf mold as a mulch. Plant on 6 inch centers for bigger bulbs. Please give it a go.

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    2. Thanks! I just might try it...we love garlic!

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  2. George,
    I don't get to comment as much as I do read but I always learn so much from you!

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  3. I haven't ever planted garlic before. You are a wonderful teacher, as I always learn here.
    Sorry to see Sandy did some damage to your lovely gardens but you are so good at what you do, that they will be up and growing strong again soon.
    Blessings and Thanks For Stopping

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