With the help of my greenhouse volunteer, Brittany, I planted two types of hardneck garlic in the last week of October. I had intended to save a few heads from our summer crop and use them as seed this fall, but in my enthusiasm to use the garlic in the kitchen i forgot to set any aside for planting. It sure was delicious... I also failed to buy the two successful varieties we grew last year because the vendor at the Common Ground Fair was all sold out. Gah! Instead i picked up some Music and Russian Red, two other hardy varieties that grow well in the Northeast.
Red Russian Garlic from Snell Family Farm in Buxton, ME
Garlic is planted in the fall to give it a head start in the growing department. Like many root vegetables, it is frost tolerant and goes into dormancy over the winter. By planting after the first frost but before the ground is frozen solid, you give the garlic a few extra weeks in which to put down some roots. Then when the warm weather comes in the spring the plant continues to grow where it left off and puts shoots up through the soil surface.
Garlic can also be planted in the spring but usually yields smaller bulbs than the same bulb planted in the fall. With a short growing season like we have in Maine any method to increase soil efficiency and capacity is helpful. One clove of garlic yields one head of garlic in the summer. The larger the clove, the larger the bulb that grows from it.
Last year I planted garlic in one of the long stationary raised beds. Over the summer, however, it was decided that those beds should be split in half and put on casters to preserve the concrete of the patio. When that happened about a quarter of the growing space was lost, but now the beds are mobile. Garlic is sensitive to over watering, especially as it matures is the summer, so hopefully the soil will now also drain better.
Soil depth is important to the success of the garlic crop because garlic puts down deep roots. These beds are over a foot deep (sorry, i haven't actually measured them) and last year yielded large, healthy bulbs. I covered the soil in straw after planting which keeps the weed growth down.
Once there was one; now there are two
And that's it. Now we wait until March or April, then harvest in July. Wahoo!
Grow on,
Tyler
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