It has been a very busy morning. When I woke up to go to hockey there was a very heavy frost that had me slightly worried. I didn’t end up starting until 10am on the garden. The weather started off looking great but then you could see the clouds starting to darken as the day went on.
The first things that I did were test out and finish the spacing on my garlic planting wheels. I used 2 bike tires from a kid’s bike and mounted them on a small frame made out of 2x4’s. Originally I figured I would need 5-6 spikes per wheel to achieve the 6 inch spacing I wanted. However when testing it out I found that I needed to measure from the tip of each spike to figure out the hole placement as opposed to the base of the spike. I ended up playing around with it for about an hour or two getting it all figured out. The spikes were attached with electrical tape in order to test the spacing out quickly. They are going to be screwed on permanently but the tape worked great for today. The spikes are made out of 1x1 inch spruce stakes that I cut out of scrap wood. I cut tips on them using the chop saw to get that 45 degree angle and then cut them into 3 inch lengths. I then just put them in a bench vice and used the draw knife to round them up a little. I do have old wheel barrow handles to use on this but due to the impending rain I just screwed a couple scrap pieces of wood on to make use for today.
When it was finally ready to go it was around 1pm and the weather was thankfully still holding out for me. For the first row I pulled the garlic planter down the rows. Pulling it worked well but it was hard to keep the row straight when you can’t see where you are going. For the next sets of rows I pushed it down and that worked much better. Straight rows and I was able to push it without walking behind it so I didn’t compact the soil. I have 6 rows sided by side which is the maximum I would go and would have preferred to go with 4 but just didn’t have enough space with everything else I want to go in. The planter worked well but did have trouble in a couple spots where the soil was a little compact. If necessary I could easily put some blocks on top to increase the weight to make sure it penetrates the ground properly.
When I was planting I made my mother help me. Her task was to write down the exact number of cloves that came out of each bulb and the number that was planted in each row. I already had everything laid out along with how many I planned to plant, but on a couple occasions snuck an extra clove or 2 into each row. I planted the bottom bed first and then the corner bed second. It took about 2 hours to plant everything, but that also included breaking apart the bulbs as I went. Because I was planting 15 varieties that were already marked on each bulb, it was easier to break them apart one variety at a time and plant instead of getting out a bunch of containers to keep them separate.
About 20 minutes after I finished and was just cleaning up the tools it started to rain. I managed to finish in the nick of time, and am now hoping that the forecast for next week changed from all rain so I can have a couple clear days to plant the rest of my garlic at the barnyard garden.
I am very happy to get all of that garlic finally in the garden. By the time I'm done planting all of it I expect to end up with just shy of 500 full sized cloves planted from 21 different varieties.
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