Garlic Bulbs

In our other homes our gardens have not been very successful. No one in our family has a natural green thumb but we have determined that we are going to have a large and successful garden. So far we have managed to achieve the goal of having a large garden. We have been kind of hit and miss on our success though.

We have been told that in some point in the past part of our land was a sod farm. I think that this has led to our current problem of having a bunch of clay soil in our garden. We have been pressing forward though. We have been composting like crazy and the soil has improved.

One of our successes this year is garlic. I met a gentleman at the farmers market last year that was selling garlic. Our family is one that believes that a good dose of garlic in just about any food improves the meal and so I started up a conversation with the gentleman. I had thought about growing garlic but did not know how well it would grow in our little valley. The man lived not too far from us and had lovely garlic. At some point in the conversation I said that I would have to go home and order some garlic starts and try planting them. The man was nice enough to teach me about garlic and made a sale in the process.

Garlic Drying

It turns out that the garlic starts that I needed were the garlic that he was selling! I had no idea that this was the case, of course that is the situation I find myself in quite often. He told me that I could buy his garlic and in October plant the cloves and they would grow into whole bulbs of garlic. I mentioned my clay soil and he said the garlic would do fine. He was also nice enough to give me his card and told me to call if I had any questions. I bought some of each of the types of garlic he had, and went back for the next few weeks to get more types.

In October of last year we prepared four rows (20 feet each) and planted the garlic cloves and used the left over bulbs in the kitchen. From what I was told the garlic needs the cold period to trigger it into getting ready to grow. I was very pleased to see them come up in the spring. They seemed to grow really well and in the beginning of July I cut the scapes (the stems) and flowers off and we used the stems in the kitchen. They turned out to be really good mixed with peppers in the home made refried beans that Tani makes as well as other dishes.

After all of the leaves and left over stems were looking really dried I dug up the garlic. Most of the garlic turned out really nice and big! We did a poor job of keeping track of the different kinds of garlic we planted and so when we laid them on a table in the garage to dry we have a mixture of different kinds. It smells really good, a combination of earth and garlic.

Valve and Stormtrooper

While digging the garlic out I only cut through one bulb so I felt good about my digging skills and while digging out one bulb we hit a surprise! I hit something hard and moved the shovel a bit and hit something hard again. It was really close to the garlic bulb so I was wondering what had happened to the bulb. I got serious and dug a big hole out and found an old pipe valve and a stormtrooper action figure buried next to the bulb. Needless to say the dirt needs more work but I think we have learned how to grow garlic successfully.

A big thanks to Tani and Tianna for their contributions to this post as hand models.