This fall marks the 4th year I have planted garlic. I love thinking back to the first year. I planted about 6 cloves each of 3 varieties: Music, Montana, and German. I recall my Dad helped me prep the ground in a flower bed I was not using for anything.
Really, it was one of the easier spots to dig here on the farm. Despite my attempts of keeping the weeds out, the grass roots (unwanted growth = weeds) were well established. At one time a flower bed, I had in previous seasons dug up the grasses. The ground was rarely walked on and was soft here.
We dug with shovels and sifted through the soil to remove roots. The small amount of space we needed might have been 2 ½ ‘ x 2 ‘.
Each year since I have saved back a portion of the garlic I grew and used it to plant more the next year, growing in numbers. I will skip ahead here in the story to say this past week I planted around 350 cloves of 5 varieties.
I posted the last 2 years sharing the experience of planting garlic.
Garlic and Garlic Year 3
Spanish Rojo
I added a new variety last year, Spanish Rojo (or Spanish Red). This variety came up a few weeks later or even a month then the Music, Montana and German. Also it produced smaller greens from the beginning. No surprise really the bulbs were about half the size (or even smaller) compared to the other varieties.
Benefits of a smaller size: On several occasions I popped a clove in my mouth and ate it. These are the perfect size for that. Yes I had to pucker my face, but I knew my health would benefit. I found folks that might only be cooking for one or two people wanted to purchase a smaller bulb. Again the Spanish Rojo was a perfect fit.
New Ground
Garlic has done well here at CG Heartbeats Farm producing large cloves over all. Last year I out grew the flower bed. Rather, I had found a new way to remove sod. I share about that in Chickens on the Homestead. Briefly, I allowed the chickens to kill off sod and used that space for gardens. I did still turn over the soil and look for roots to remove.
While I planted Montana, German and the new Spanish Rojo garlic in the flower bed by the house. I moved a 5’ by 5’ chicken pen and planted around 34 cloves of Music garlic in that area
That ground produced the some of the largest bulbs harvested in 2019. I decided that this year the Spanish Rojo will be going in ground where a chicken pen had been. I want to see if the bulbs will grow bigger there. Not that it is all bad to offer a smaller size bulb. There did seem to be a demand for it.
Harvesting in 2019
We had an incredible wet spring in 2019. The grass and every thing grew like crazy. A rule of thumb I go by is to wait until the bottom 4 leaves have died off to harvest the bulbs. I guess I miss counted or the bottom leave left no trace of its existence? Anyway, some of the bulbs seemed like they should have been harvested earlier. No loss for me, they will still be good for planting and that is what I did with those bulbs.
Garlic and Farmer’s Markets
I felt happy to bring 4 healthy varieties of garlic to the 2 local markets I attended last summer. I enjoyed the conversations on the topic of garlic. I liked hearing others also grew garlic.
Next year I plant to offer an online buying options and you might find CG Heartbeats Farm garlic in a local store.
A new Variety
I choose Elephant as the new variety to plant this year, bringing the total varieties of garlic here at CG Heartbeats Farm to 5. I read they had a lighter sweeter taste and grow as large as softballs. Wow! Now the bulb I purchased ($10.95 + shipping) was not much larger than some of the music bulb I grew this year. A couple of the elephant cloves were definitely larger. I made sure to plant them in the new garden ground that had been a chicken pen.
Humm wonder how big they will get. I read that the tops grow 5 to 7 feet tall. In hindsight I needed to plant them on the north end of the garden not the south end. They may cast a shadow on the shorter garlic varieties. I am leaving room to improve it seems.
2020 Garlic Crop
Planting garlic this fall happened in shifts as it seems to each year. Every year I seem to fight the feeling as good as I want to when I go about this activity. And yet each year I am getting more planted. This gives me a satisfied feeling.
I did prep the ground and plant all the 340 + cloves with in one week. I will add this is all happening by hand, in its entirety. I started on a Tuesday removing the corn stalks and some bean plants. The next day I made it outside around dusk and worked by a flashlight for around 3 hours. I had removed all plants, worked the soil only to remove unwanted rooted green plants (mostly grass), and planted 97 cloves of German Garlic.
On Thursday I planted Spanish Rojo and Elephant in the rest of the garden I had cleared on Wednesday night.
On Friday my friend Beth came over to help me. We prepped ground and planted 77 cloves of Music garlic in the garden bed up by the house.
We spent a bit of time turning over the dirt where I had previously moved a chicken pen.
We have been trading work days or afternoons usually. It has been an encouragement to me and I always enjoy helping her. Not only did we get work done, we hung out, had lunch together, and chatted.
Beth and I harvested candy onions and a bit of mind. We even found a clove or two of garlic that i had missed earlier this year. I had planted the candy onions in between the rows of garlic last spring. When I harvested the garlic I gathered in the ones I could find. They never got real big so I will not do that next year.
I knew I had to get the Montana garlic and Egyptian walking onions in on Saturday. We were forecasted to have temps down around 6 degrees in the coming week. In hind sight, that week has passed and the ground has not frozen yet. No matter, I am trilled to have the garlic in.
That Saturday, I moved the last chicken pen, finished working the soil (slightly) in a 5’ by 10’ that had chickens on it since May, and planted around 80 Montana garlic varieties. I did get the Egyptian Walking onions planted, too. I will save that for a post next year.
The garlic is in for this fall. I will be adding hay chaff first and then wood chips as the become available this winter. The hay chaff comes from the barn and the wood chips from chopping wood here at CG Heartbeats Farm.
New in 2020
In 2020 there will be an online purchasing option on this website. A limited amount of garlic will be availbale to purchase online. That means even if you are not local to our area, you will be able to order our garlic and garlic scapes.