Yup, it is October, and it is getting cold. Time to get those cloves in the ground. Last week I gave the potato onions a home, this week it is garlic's turn. I had read a very informative piece over at Daphne's Dandelions a few days ago, and I think I will try one of her methods which involves peeling and soaking your cloves before planting them out. Daphne claims great success with this method, so now I just need to go check the proof on my bottle of vodka and decide which cloves will the best for seed. The trouble is that a large head of garlic doesn't always mean large cloves are inside, in fact many of my small heads have few, but large cloves. From what I understand, the larger the clove the better when it comes to next year's crop.
I ordered some hardneck garlic (German Extra Hardy), and will also be planting 3 other varieties that were harvested from the garden this year (a mystery farmer's market variety, Chet's Italian Red, and Inchelium Red- both softnecks).
**UPDATE** I did in fact soak the cloves in a baking soda mixture w/ some minerals and seaweed, but only for a couple of hours as the rain was coming. They were quickly peeled, then rinsed and soaked in rubbing alcohol for about a minute, rinsed again, and then run out into the garden. I had a friend over so I didn't pause to take pictures as I already felt a bit rude for peeling and planting garlic while she was here, but what else is there to do when 3 or 4 solid days of rain are coming?
These are all the discarded cloves. Some of these just may be bruised, but I do not have enough experience to differentiate between fungus, nematode entry hole, or "just a pimpled//discolored/brown spot" so aired on the side of caution.....but look at all these cloves- maybe I should cook them up? I hate to just toss them in the garbage. Thanks to all the discarded cloves I am shy of filling two 4 x 4 beds as I had intended. Maybe I will just raid my stash and plant some more out once the rain stops.
HAPPY GARDENING!
9 comments:
Interesting! I have never heard of soaking them. I need to get busy and get mine ordered...
I'm doing this same exact task today, and also using Daphne's tips. I hope it grows!
Best of luck meems!
I have most likely SOOOO much garlic I can send you. I have four friends who asked I add a garlic order for them in with mine and I do believe all four of them are bailing.
I'll let you know within a few days if you're interested.
I have plenty braided up for cooking I can raid for seed, but I totally appreciate the offer!! I believe Erin has not ordered hers yet- she may be quite interested in your extra garlic if it turns out you have any. I would guess many mail-order outfits are sold out at this point.
I hope that soaking method works well for you and those cloves develop into beautiful garlic bulbs! Have you already had your first frost yet? Some of the garlic articles said to wait until after the first frost, so I'm still waiting to plant some. Then again, I don't have any "good" garlic to plant since I was late to this garlic game and found out only too late that most good online stores were sold out.
Ribbit, if you have any extra hardneck garlic I would totally be interested! I'd pay you for whatever your cost.
No frost yet thyme2garden, October 10th is good average date for me though.
Hi Kelly, I planted our garlic 2 days ago. My husband asked me, do we water it now? And I didn't have an answer. Do you water your garlic that you just planted? Or just wait until spring?
I need to go back and see when I planted my garlic last year. I think I waited until the third week of October.
This year was such a good one for garlic. Hopefully, next year will be just as good.
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