Hannah and I decided to try our hand at growing garlic last year. I mean how hard can it be? I read a neat article on growing garlic in a kitchen container garden. Sounds like fun right? Some interesting kitchen container…. A little potting soil…. A few cloves of garlic. Easy right? NOT. Well not just any container will do. It needs to be deep enough, have drainage, you need adequate light, blah blah blah! I knew better. Just plant the garlic in the garden! So we did. I have one of the first beds my sweet husband built for me that’s a little difficult to work. It’s 8” X 16” so being only 5”2’ it’s a little difficult for me to reach the middle of the bed. Most years I just plant around the edges about 4 ft in. That leaves a good portion unused. Solution you ask? Plant garlic – a crop that has to stay in the ground for several months before you can harvest – in the middle of the bed. The garlic occupies a space previously unused due to access problems making us more efficient. It will grow with little maintenance over the winter and spring months while I plant crops that need more attention around the outer edge of the bed. Perfect solution! In addition, the garlic is a great companion crop and helps discourage pests in the rest of the bed! Our first crop was an awesome success! We harvested a little later than we should so some of the cloves had started to separate but that’s easily enough solved! We also harvested bulb garlic – considered an old fashioned or heirloom variety – from my in-laws farm. Both types of garlic were a huge success at the Farmer’s Market! What does that mean? Why it means I planted twice as much this year! Our cloves went in the ground in early November and have sprouted and are doing well. I replanted the center of what we now refer to as the garlic bed in addition to scattering small patches of garlic throughout several other beds to assist with pest management. Come the end of April, we’ll be digging it up! So, now I can safely say….Garlic? Why, of course! Here we grow again!
