garlic planting prep
Time seems to be in shorter supply every trip round the sun. This year we seem to have fallen behind so much so that it may be another couple of evenings outside in the dark, cold, and wet, trying to get the fall planting done.
The last two days of cold we have been prepping inside the garage.
Garlic bulbils go into labelled large styrofoam cups, perforated on the bottom, filled with potting soil.
There are approximately 75 types/bags of garlic shown here.
The garlic planting cloves themselves need to be broken out of, or cracked, the garlic bulb. Some are easy, most are not. We use just our hands and fingers, no mechanical aid, in breaking them apart.
The chosen seed garlic were in labelled paper bags, stored in the cold room since harvest and drying in August. This was my first year at cracking the garlic. In the past we have done it out in the garden as we plant, with Kim doing the work. That may explain why our typical garlic clove planting sessions run 4-5 hours for about 500 cloves. Hopefully this year, with the advanced prep in the garage, it should go faster. I can’t recall which type this one shown above is, but they look like four large cloves, so my guess is probably Mennonite.
We have also inventoried the signage and prepared missing ones, cut the 1×2 sticks down to a standard length, and are almost ready to go!