Garlic Planting Time
October 3rd, 2009 · 2 Comments · Posted in garden
Garlic planted now will winter over and be ready for harvest in early summer
I look forward to planting garlic in the fall. It connects me to my garden next year, reassuring me that the too long winter ahead will yield something wondrous. The cloves I plant now will soon send up shoots that will survive through cold and ice and become mature plants on the other side of the calendar. Sometime in June, I reckon, they will be ready to harvest.
I have two kinds of garlic, a “hardneck” and a “softneck.” Softneck garlic is the type you normally see in the store, with an odd number of cloves of all sizes. Hardneck garlic has a much stiffer stem with a more determinate number of evenly sized cloves centered around it. This is the kind of garlic that produces those scapes–or flower stems–that have become popular on restaurant menus and in farmers markets for their delicate allium flavor.
I’m planting in a bed that was previously populated by tomatoes, eggplants, peppers. In fact, I remove several pepper plants to make room, harvesting the fruit. I also pull the last of our marigold plants, which even now are sporting new flowers. With my forked spade, I give the soil a gentle heave all over, then stir in a good dusting of fresh compost with my stirrup hoe.
The soil is rich and soft–as it should be. Garlic and onions like plenty of food, especially phosphate and potassium. Previous soil tests have shown there is no shortage of either in our garden. Then I simple plunge the cloves into the soil–stem end down–spacing them about six inches apart. Eventually, I will mulch the area with a thick layer of shredded straw.
The whole procedure doesn’t take long. I’ve calculated the size of my bed well for two heads of softneck garlic and three heads of hardneck. I even have some room left over to plant more greens: tat soi, arugula, tenderleaf.
And so next year’s garden has already begun.
Ed; I love that line, “on the other side of the calendar.” And I’m doing the same thing here. A neighbor asked me if I was working on my fall garden, and I said, of course, “No, my spring one.” 🙂
Pattie, good luck with your garlic. Apparently, we’re all on the same schedule, although I thought you didn’t have winter in Atlanta.