Friday, 30 March 2012

Allotment - Garlic

We already have winter sown Garlic in the Ground that was planted Late Nov / Early Dec which should crop in early summer time. 


We are big garlic users in our household so decided to sow a spring planting also. Ideally you would do this Early March time but we only got around to it late March but are hopeful we got them in just on time. 


To sow garlic it couldn't be easier, you usually buy a pack of 3-4 certified garlic bulbs which have around 12 cloves each in them. All you have to do is split each clove apart from the bulb, you need to allow 6-8 inches between cloves in rows approx 18 inches apart (we made our rows a lot closer at approx 8 inches apart) and 2-3 inches deep. Conventionally all you have to do is push the clove into the soil at the above spacing and that's it. 


This is how we planted our winter garlic and they seem to be doing quite well. See image below. 






As an experiment we made a small hole in the soil with a dibber, we then filled this hole with some compost and compressed it slightly. Then we planted a clove of garlic into the compost and covered it so just the top was visible. This is the method with which we sow our carrots and parsnips and I just wanted to give it a go. It is a good way (at least I hope it is) of giving the clove a good start as it has lots of organic matter to feed on. I have not read about others doing this and there may well be a good reason for that but I said I'd give it a go. Only downside to this method is that it is time consuming. 

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