planting garlic

I just planted my garlic.  I was a tad concerned since we already had snow once.  Luckily, the snow melted away, and this past week had warm temperatures.

This is only my second year planting garlic.  Last year I also planted it, just as a test run, to see if I could make anything grow.  It seems strange to put something in the ground before winter, let it sit all winter long, and then come spring, it pops out of the ground.  The garlic grew relatively well this past summer.  I did have a bit of a pest problem, as in something ate half of the garlic under the ground.  I’m still not clear on what it was, but am assuming some type of mole or vole.  – Has anyone else had that problem before?

This year I planted the garlic where the rest of my garden will be come next spring.  The chickens did a nice job taking all the weeds and grass away, so I figured it would be a good spot.

Garlic is very easy to plant.  Each clove of garlic will produce one head of garlic the following summer.  All you need to do is stick a clove of garlic 2-3 inches into the ground with the pointed side up.  Plant the cloves about 6 inches apart and then cover with mulch.  Last year I used newspaper because I had a bunch stacked in my house, and it worked just fine.  But, you can also use leaves and straw I believe.  In the spring, when you see the green shoots coming out of the ground, pull back the mulch and let it grow grow grow.

Now after you grow your garlic bulbs, you can then use those for planting the next fall.  I, of course, did not plant nearly enough garlic last year to do that.  In fact, I think we had eaten all the garlic I had grown by September.  Needless to say I will be planting garlic from our CSA this year, and from the farmers’ market.  If you don’t have a farmers’ market, I have heard people buying garlic at the grocery store and using that as well.

I grow the hardneck variety.  It isn’t able to be braided, but it gives lovely scapes in the early summer, and seems to last all winter long (well, at least the kind that I have gotten from our summer CSA does!).

Do you grow garlic?  Do you have a favorite variety?

I’m linking up at the Barn Hop