New garden

Last year I had a terrific year for garlic, I had over 800 plants, I had a bulb over 4 OZ.  I did realize I had a problem with leek moths eating my garlic but all in all not too much of an issue.  I only lost a few bulbs and had minor damage to the rest.   The peppers and everything else did terrible, just wasn’t a good year for them.

 

This year there are huge changes.  The Barnyard garden is officially gone, the property was sold and I just need to harvest my garlic and that will be the end of that.  I have moved and started a new garden at my own place.  It is very large and has a number of things growing in it. I am going to try and post about this year to keep track of it.

 

I will be checking my garlic later today that I still have in at home, the scapes are all up and looking good, might try to weed them a little bit tonight.  Everything has been so busy I just haven’t had time to post about stuff, but am keeping a detailed spreadsheet for tracking, to help determine the differences year to year.

Winter Mulch

The weather has started to turn to winter and finally time to mulch everything.  I like to wait until we have had a little snow and frost, in the hopes that most creatures have already found their winter homes, before I lay down bales of nice dry straw.  I mulched the garlic at home with a bale and a half per bed, the raspberries asparagus and strawberries with another 3 bales and then used 2 and a half bales to mulch the garlic at the community garden.  This will pretty much wrap up my posting for the winter, and hopefully I can get it back on track in the spring.

Barnyard Garlic Planting

Taking advantage of 4 hours of sunlight, I planted the remaining garlic at the barnyard garden today.  It has been raining daily, which hasn’t exactly been ideal for planting.  I took time yesterday to break apart all of my bulbs, so that I could plant faster today.  The planting went well, got everything planted before the weather started to turn on me.  I planted around 335 cloves to take my total this year to over 800.  I'm hoping that with the increase in quantity as well as an increase in the number of porcelains and marbled purple stripe I can more than double my harvest weight from last year.   

Home Planting

Right on schedule I planted all of my garlic at home today.  I spent the last couple weeks getting the bed ready.  I dug up another 150 square feet of grass to plant in.  I dug the sod under and then after letting it decompose for about 2 weeks I re dug it and raked out any large remaining chunks of sod.  This year the garlic has stakes with actual labels.  Using a paint pen I had my wife write the names of all the varieties and I then sealed it with a couple coats of urethane.  I'm hoping that it survives the winter.  I then planted all of my garlic taking notes as I did.  It took the better part of the day to plant all 478 cloves because of the remaining prep work I had and the fact that I was planting so many different varieties.

Cleaning Garlic

Today I cleaned the rest of my garlic.  Some of it was left too long in the rafters but for the most part they cleaned up beautifully.  I think that 4-5 weeks is optimal for drying time and 6 weeks is a little long depending on conditions.  Most of them had 3 layers come off the outside, but a few did have 4 to 5 layers.  The glazed purple stripes and a couple of the Rocambole’s  had looser skins.

Cleaning some garlic

Today after drying almost 2 weeks I started to trim some up for the Farm market to sell.  I found that the porcelains and a few of the marbled stripes being larger were not quite ready yet and could defiantly use another week at least.  The marbled purple stripes and rocambole’s were much drier, but for optimal storage another week would also be beneficial.  I also was able to go over the notes I took day of when harvesting.  Some plants definitely needed to come out sooner, purple glazers as well as a few other varieties 2 weeks after scapes are cut they need to be dug.  The porcelains I had notes saying to leave them in a few more days, but I am finding as they dry that the skins are cracking 2-3 layers deep.  So depending on how much cracking continues 3 weeks after the scapes are cut might be the optimal time to dig them up.  Now the cracking could be a result of the rain we received the day before they were dug, but not entirely sure.

Harvested at the Barn

I stopped after work today to harvest all the garlic in the community garden.  I did the same as before digging each variety individually, making notes before tying them up and then hanging them in the barn when I was finished.  It took me a couple hours but I did have Simon to help me out, or rather stalk the chickens and play with my string.