This is the first time I have grown garlic, so it should be an interesting experience to see how it goes. In addition this will be my first autumn crop, usually I stop growing when the frosts show up. But this plant is designed to be cultivated through the winter and come out during the next summer for harvest. And I really love cooking with garlic and shallots so it should be some tasty food if it all works out in the end. It will also be a good test for growing garlic as we plan on doing it on a much bigger scale next summer.
While I was looking at dry fertilizer on a website I found a "garlic starter kit" they had for sale. It included many kinds of garlic such as Elephant, Music, California late white, Russian red and even French red shallots. I was excited to receive this kit in the mail and get started with my trial run of garlic production before we take it to a bigger scale next year.
It is good that Music garlic was in the kit, chances are that is the kind of hardneck garlic we will be growing in the future. It comes from Virginia so it does well here.
Cool the kit also came with shallots. Lots of great things inside to grow.
I broke up the bulbs and separated the big cloves from the small ones. We kept the small cloves for cooking and the big ones for planting.
With my solo cups all lined up, they are ready to be soaked.
Inside are the bulbs kept for planting. Some barely fit into the cups, so I needed two for the shallots.
And left over is the smaller cloves we will cook with.
I made some kelp water for bulbs to soak in for a day. This will give them nutrients from the start and hydrate the bulbs so they are ready to go as soon as they hit the dirt.
Adding it to my cups I will let them sit about 1.5 days.
My kelp water is made by just soaking help meal in water for a day and shaking well every few hours.
1.5 days have passed and the bulbs are ready, I go outside to my planting area and till the beds. Get the top soil ready for mixing with garden soil.
Running the tiller a few times in each bed helps loosen up the dirt.
A little clean up after running the tiller I can now add garden soil.
We can see the wood chips are starting to break down into the soil. The tilling helps with that, there are buried sticks and small branches deep in the beds.
With the garden soil added it should help bring in even more fungus to break down the wood chips and plant debris into resources for the garlic.
We can see the black soil on top. This is Kellogs garden soil, bought myself a pallet of the bags and using it as I need to for each bed. I put a whole bag in a bed and then mix it with the top soil I tilled up.
These beds are ready, time to bring out the garlic cloves.
After soaking for 1.5 days some are already forming roots. Time to get them into the ground.
I planted them around 6-10 inches apart depending on the size of the bulb.
Stapled their label that I placed in a bag, so I will remember what is growing in each. Hopefully the bags wont be taken away the wind. I probably should do something a little better in the future for labeling them.
Nice, our first autumn planting is done.. Well besides the Kiwi vines but that only took a few minutes. Getting all the garlic beds prepped took me about half a day.
Soon I will pull out the tomato cages and rework the other beds as well. Dumped a bunch of dirt in them. Need to smooth it out and maybe climb up in them with the tiller. Those are 2x8 boards so its pretty high up. Ill need to be careful.. lol
Greetings my dear friend. Hey, I learned something new. I didn't know about seaweed water to provide nutrients. It's interesting.
Hey there, yeah this was new for me as well. Learned about it while reading the instructions that came with the garlic kit.
🤦 there's instructions?!🤪 I'm not good with those 🤣🤣
Glad I was reading comments so now I know🤗🤗🤪
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A very good way of planting garlic has been told and anyone can plant garlic by reading this post which is very beneficial for our health.
Ah thank you, hopefully the way I did it works out.
It sure is
Yes, you are doing a good job in your garden.
I've never planted garlic but I bet it would be delicious. I hear it sucks a lot of nutrients from the soil so many things can't be planted there afterwards. I don't know if that's accurate or not though
I am really excited to eat fresh garlic, market garlic may be old so it will be cool to try it fresh. I really like that about everything I grow, trying it as soon as its ready.
Oh okay good to know, well we plan on adding lots of nutrients to the soil.
Growing your own vegetables are always better than store bought
Very cool. The purple toned cloves are the ones that I had to plant up here. Anything else just isn't going to take with the cold temps I was told. I look forward to seeing what you can produce next year!
Ah okay, I am a little more south than you so I will probably just need to cover the beds with wood chips to overwinter them.
thanks. me too, should be interesting.
When you have a moment do you think you can vote for me a witness? I have been up and running for a few days now.
Yeah, I think you are going to have a lot of really good luck with them. You will eventually have enough that you can do the cool braiding thing. The scapes are fun to harvest in the early summer too.
Nice, looking forward to it. In the instruction guide it said to plant them deeper if winters are more severe. I only planted mine around 3 inches but would have probably had to double that if I was further north.
I don't think I planted mine that deep, so that could be part of the reason I had such bad luck with them.
Yeah, I was going to do that and then I forgot. Sorry!
No worries, thanks much for the vote.
Such a good crop! Easy to grow and a great winter crop. The whole after harvesting part and drying is what I keep getting hung up on for how to do it right to preserve it longer.
You grow garlic....this is really a good idea....today I got to know about the garlic planting....I hope next summer you will get good harvesting of the garlic 😀
Hello @solominer
Excellent work, I didn't know there was a garlic planting kit with different types, I hope they all thrive well in the field
I wish you much success
Now this I can benefit from!
@misshugo... fancy a garlic garden?
I was wondering to see the progress of each bulb! which one will be the most effective?? you have a nice scientific experiment in your hands hehe!
I grew garlic for the first time last year, planted 8 cloves but by I didn't be soak by them, didn't know I had to 😅
A few didn't grow, the others made it quite well into spring. Then I harvested some way too early and was left with one that was slightly under developed but still edible. It's still hanging dry in my garage now.
I'm going to plant them again next month, hopefully will get better results second time round
Voted! I didn't realize that now is the time to plant garlic. I'm going to try and get me some started also.
I recently planted cabbage, so I'm excited about that 🤗
!LUV
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So now you're onto the garlic and why the hell not?! Who doesn't like garlic? Well alright I guess some people don't but they don't count. It's great to see you growing your own garlic and well done for giving it a go, I know some people who grow things in their greenhouses but I have never known anyone to grow their own garlic. I really hope they turn out well and you get a decent harvest out of the soaked bulbs you've planted. Tell me you will make your own garlic butter!
You will have a bowl of garlic rice soon.😄