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| Click on Image to Enlarge Garlic Purchased This Summer |
This summer, husband Doug and I visited several gardens on the Hamilton Spectator Open Garden Week tours. One of them was an extensive multifunctional garden in rural Canfield, where we discovered the friendly homeowners also grew and sold garlic.
While there, we purchased a large bunch of garlic for a pretty reasonable price and brought it home for use in our cooking. The garlic has turned out to be as delicious as we were told it would be, and is quite decorative on one of my greenhouse window shelves in the kitchen.
This fall, I researched the trick to growing healthy garlic: Plant good quality garlic cloves, root side down, 2" apart, in rich well-drained soil, just 2" under the surface; then mulch.
That one can begin the process of growing garlic, so late in the year, is quite exciting: Specifically, fall planting of garlic allows for maturation and harvest as early as mid-July.
Whoo, hoo!
The process seemed straight-forward enough; and, as I was in possession of excellent root stock, I decided to give growing my own garlic a try.
I decided to spread out my garlic plants amongst my perennials in the sunny part of my front garden - Seven cloves (just one head - it's an experiment, after all) in seven separate 10" diameter by 12" deep holes, filled with well-drained soil recycled from my beet and broccoli plants earlier in the year.
My present concern - that squirrels might dig up the cloves when I'm not looking - will hopefully be averted by reemployment of plastic Dollar Store cloches and mulch, the latter of which should also protect the bulbs from freezing temperatures over the winter.
I'll have to be careful to apply high-nitrogen fertilizer in the spring, add mulch to replace decomposed moisture protection, cut off early flower stalks (if present) that compete for nourishment, and remove all mulch in June when the plants begin to form their bulbs.
With luck and careful attention, though, I hope my garlic experiment will be a happy success!
