Garlic

We planted garlic this weekend.



Most of it was what we had saved from this year's crop, but we did buy a third variety to supplement. Clockwise from the back left is Spanish Roja, German White and Chesnook. They are all hard-necked garlics. The Chesnook we bought this year at the farmer's market in Madison, WI. The heads have large cloves and have a beautiful red skin. Most importantly, it had good flavor too. We ended up planting about 75 cloves this year. This should be enough to hopefully have enough to eat next winter as well as plant (this year most of our crop went to seed.)

Here we are adding compost to the bed before planting the garlic. We then laid out a grid of holes and put one clove in each hole. We'll put straw over the bed after the garlic comes up to help keep the cold out and then it will sit there all winter.




As soon as it starts warming up next spring, it will start growing. This picture is from last April. We then harvest in July when the tops start dying back.