It was a lovely fall day today, and it’s time to plant next year’s garlic crop.  We saved some garlic heads from this year’s crop and I’m anxious to see how well they dried and cured.

First, I have to scrape off the straw mulch and do a bit of weeding.

I like to layout the planting holes before I start.  An old yardstick is a favorite tool.  I’m going to space the cloves six inches apart this year.  Last year, I only spaced them four inches apart, and it was a bit difficult to get between the plants to weed.

My 3″ long index finger is another favorite gardening tool.  Seriously, measure your finger.  To my first knuckle, it’s 1/2″.  To my middle knuckle, it’s 1-1/2″.  If I spread my hand apart, it’s 8″ from the tip of my pinky to the tip of my thumb. Works great for estimating planting depths and spacings.

These are two heads of Music garlic I saved from this summer’s harvest.  I did have to hide them from BarBBQ Bill, as he was ready to use them for cooking.  I chose not to wash them before storing.  I just cured them for a couple of weeks, brushed the major dirt off, and put them in a mesh bag clearly labeled “NEXT YEAR’S GARLIC – DO NOT EAT!”

I’ve broken the head apart into individual cloves just before I’m ready to plant them.  You can see how the particular variety of garlic got the name “stiffneck”.  The cloves surround the stem of the plant that dries into a stiff stalk.

I’ve dug small holes about three inches deep and pressed one clove into the bottom of each hole.  Make sure you plant the clove with the pointed tip up.  The root end, where the clove was attached to the big root ball, goes down against the soil.  Garlic does not like being planted upside down.

I noticed a few cloves were damaged, so those don’t get planted.  They will probably begin to decay in the soil, so I’m not going to bother planting these. The good news is we can still eat it.  Just cut off that little brown spot and you’re good to go.

Here’s all my cloves in their planting holes, ready to get tucked in for the winter.  Before you cover them up, remember to mark where you planted them and what kind you planted in which spot.

Cover the cloves and tamp the soil firmly, but don’t pack it down too much. At this point, if the soil was dry, I’d water them well, but it has rained for the last two days, and the ground is moist enough.

I’m going to leave the straw mulch off for a while.  The garlic cloves will start growing roots, and when the weather starts getting colder, I’ll put on a nice layer of chopped straw to keep some heat in the soil, as well as moderating the temperatures and the freezing/thawing cycles that we get in the winter.

The only thing left to do is…wait for spring.

Bookmark This Post