Putting in the 2015 Garlic

My LSU AgCenter Vegetable Planting Guide lists the last date to plant garlic is 11/30.  With time running out, on November 28th, I checked a portion of the row that I wanted to plant garlic on and found that it had finally dried out.  I had better get started!  It was an unseasonably warm day as I got my hoe out and a bag of 4 garlic bulbs that Tricia had purchased for me at our local feed store for a whopping $1.38.

Ready to plant garlic

I sat down on a bench underneath the pear tree and began to break off the individual cloves of garlic. I leave the skins on the garlic, so this doesn't take any time at all.

Breaking apart the garlic cloves

I counted them up as I put the cloves back into the paper bag.  I counted 59 cloves. If they all produce, that will be a nice harvest, but I notice that some of the cloves are really small and a few were damaged.  I decided to plant a few of the marginal looking cloves in one hole just in case some don't sprout.

Let's go put these in the ground

I worked up the soil real to a real nice texture.  The soil had plenty of moisture but wasn't overly wet - perfect, in my opinion, for planting.  I pulled out some winter grass and clover that was growing as I raked the seedbed smooth.

Soil worked up

A friend gave me some sawdust that had composted chicken manure mixed in it, and this seemed like the perfect application to amend a little of this to the soil.  A few scoops were added on top of the freshly worked soil, and then I worked it all in, making sure it was incorporated evenly throughout.

Sawdust with composted chicken manure

Garlic should be planted 1 inch deep, with the pointy side facing up and then they should be 4 - 6 inches apart from one another.  I used a stick to make the holes the appropriate depth and distance and carefully placed a clove (or 2 damaged ones) in each hole.

"Holey" Ground

Then I used my hands to cover each hole.  Later that afternoon we got 0.2 inches of rain, and I think that was just about perfect to wake the slumbering cloves up and get them to sprout.  Once they are up and growing, we'll mulch thickly around them with hay to discourage weed growth.  Garlic don't do well with weed competition.

Cover, add water, and wait...

In 210 days the garlic should be ready to harvest.  You can go to THIS SITE and put in the number of days to maturity and it will give you the harvest date, in this case - roughly June 25th.  If the Good Lord is willing, we'll harvest some nice cloves of garlic in late June and will be able to dry them to store in our pantry.  Garlic - we love it!

"We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic."  Numbers 11:5