Garlic

We've recently planted our garlic for the year. Last year we had Spanish Roja and Purple Glazer. Both turned out amazing so we thought we'd add to our varieties this year so that we can keep a large selection of garlic seed stock. This year we have: Spanish Roja, Purple Glazer, Late Pink, Russian Red, German Red, Purple Italian (All we need is a Japanese type to have an Axis Garlic group), and Bogatyr. We have French Red Shallots as well and we'll be experimenting with different types of onions. So far, we planted at least 100 cloves of each garlic, which will (with luck) produce 700+ heads of garlic. The ratio that is given is that 1lb of garlic can produce 10 lbs of garlic. If we're lucky, we can end up with 70 lbs of garlic. Jed says it's a good start.

Which brings me to my next part of garlic. When I was asked what I did for the weekend I told people about planting garlic, at which point every single person I met mentioned that they did not know that there were different types of garlic. Yes, yes there are many different types of garlic. Many wonderful, exotic tasting garlics. Some that can set your mouth on fire and others that will provide a subtle taste to your food. I'm including some pages that provide garlic (in particular heirloom garlic) for you all to drool over and enjoy. If you get a chance this year, try garlic. It is one of the easiest crops to grow although it does require a bit of time in the ground.

Sites for garlic:

http://www.groworganic.com/seasonal-items/seed-garlic.html
http://www.landrethseeds.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=29_969

You can also try your local Feed/Tractor store to see if they carry any.

I once heard an adage of planting on the shortest day and harvesting on the longest day, don't follow it. Garlic needs the dark days to encourage bulb growth. I had really good turn out planting Halloween and harvesting in May. The end of October is usually when we get the first frost so that works. Pay attention to your climate to determine when it would be best to grow yours. Good Luck and enjoy!!

A Tale of Two Garlic

We inadvertently demonstrated the effect of pressure treated boards on garlic. Last year Jed made three raised beds for me to play with so that the birds wouldn't get into them. Last season we cleared out the duck pond and moved all that "mud" into the two small raised beds (by small I mean 3x12ft) and then layered them with topsoil. These two beds we used to plant our garlic. This year we tried out a variety called Spanish Roja that the local farm supply stocked. Approximately 70 cloves went in to each bed in October. All were planted about an inch down into the soil and covered with about 3 inches of straw. Both were watered at the same time, weeded at the same time, and mulched at the same time. The only difference was that one bed was made using old boards, and the other was made using old pressure treated boards. I wish I could have taken a picture when the greens were growing to show the difference.


It was immediately obvious that the pressure treated bed was not doing well. Of the 70 cloves that we planted in each bed, all of them grew in the plain board bed while only 11 grew in the pressure treated bed. We planted another 70 cloves into the pressure treated bed hoping it was just a bad batch we put in there. Once again, most did not sprout and in total we had only 22 garlic grow.



Around the time that they were mature we placed the baby chicks in with the failed garlic bed and they, of course, ate and trampled all the greens. Not much of a loss as the garlic had technically finished growing.


As the last of the greens in the good bed finished falling over I decided to harvest the garlic this weekend and since I was unable to take a picture of the greens to compare them I thought I'd show you a picture of the harvest for you to see the results. The first image is of the sad garlic in the failed bed when I first put the chicks into the bed. The second image shows the big braid of garlic from the good bed followed by a picture of the small heads of garlic from the good bed, and I did not picture the smaller heads that I put straight into our garlic drawer. The last picture is the entirety of the harvest from the pressure treated bed. (Ivan is helping)

The lesson learned from this experiment was that no matter how old the pressure treated board is that you are trying to use in your garden, it seems as though it will continue to leach out chemicals while it is in use. I know many people say that it is safe to use pressure treated boards as edging for your garden and that it won't affect your plants, but the garlic seem to tell us a different tale. I don't know whether to try planting legumes in the same beds to see if this effect is true for more than just one crop or to skip the trial as I'm playing with things that I and my family will consume. Knowledge is power, but formaldehyde is not something I want my food to play with when my family is involved.

And also, for companion planting - garlic and peas do not grow well together. The growth of the garlic is stunted. I did not notice a decrease in productivity in the peas.

Planting garlic

We were able to plant one bed of garlic today. After planting the first bed I realized that I don't have nearly as much space as I need to plant the 8lbs of garlic. We picked up some Spanish Roja, an early California softneck, a purple, and some misc garlic left over from last year. If we do manage to get the optimum return on our garlic we should end up with something like 80lbs of garlic next year. If we're very lucky we might have it ready to pick next summer and be able to save up 10lbs for a harvest of 100lbs the following year. And bringing it back to the present, I was able to plant one bed and then I had to go in because Ivan was hungry. I was able to go back outside a little while later and a good thing I did because the chickens had already unearthed a couple of my cloves of garlic. I covered the whole bed with a couple inches of straw, watered the bed, and then covered it so that the chickens won't have the opportunity to scratch. We'll see when I can finish planting the garlic so that I can move on to shallots, onions, and leeks.
We did some calculations on our alum consumption this year and I think we eat about 300lbs of onions, about 100lbs to 15o of garlic, about 7lbs of shallots and about 10lbs of leeks. The shallots and leeks have low numbers mostly because we do not have ample access to these delicious cousins of the garlic and onion. We were going to grow a bunch to see if we do end up consuming more.