I had big plans to really beef up my soil over the autumn and winter... and then I got my garlic I forgot I ordered a few months back. I LOVE garlic. How could I forget I ordered it? Terrible. Anyway, my pre-garlic plan was, in my mind, perfect and would help my garden be as perfect as possible next year. This season was so terrible, I felt it was the only thing I could do to make me feel better. Here it is: I have matured chicken manure pellets. My raised beds are 3' x 8'. I was going to sprinkle a cup in the bed now and again in the end of November. I don't have enough Comfrey, so I was going to go buy alfalfa pellets (rabbit food) to fill in where the plant matter would go in for compost. Then I would cover it over with either brown paper or newspaper if I couldn't find mulch. Then, in March, I'd stir in some peat, in April some Jobe's organic plant food and be ready to plant seeds in the beginning of May. Now that I have garlic to plant, how much of this can I do? What should I do? The chicken manure, in pellet form, is it safe? The alfalfa pellets, too much nitrogen?, not composted? Is that ok? Should I just mix in some Jobe's Organic plant food, plant the garlic and mulch over? BTW, what is a good organic mulch? (I most likely will have to buy it at a store) This is my first time with garlic. Please help. I want them to be happy and successful. Thanks in advance.
For garlic the best I have found is plain old leaf mold ! For the chicken manure pellets you can just toss them on top of the ground and let the rains take it into the soil ! But for that I would wait til the garlic begins to grow ! You can add some plant food to that if you want but I never have ! Garlic is like a weed,, it usually grows regardless of what you do as long as it has the proper organic material !
Must plant ours tomorrow, saved some cloves from the Isle of Wight varieties, they did really well last season
@mart - That sounds promising! I read that garlic is a heavy feeder and can be a bit finicky. Perhaps because I'm a New Englander. What do you consider "the proper organic material"? I dumped a lot of peat and compost (store-bought) in my special tomato bed this spring, but it didn't do my toms any good. Will it make my garlic happy? Can I plant other things in with the garlic come spring? Thinking of spring... Garlic is like a weed? Is it anything like onion grass? I have a lot of that in our yard. I do nothing to it, but am thinking of using it in place of buying onions at the store. Thoughts? @Zigs - Those look amazing! You must walk me through how you accomplished that down to every little detail! I really hope I can get a harvest like that! I'll wait until tomorrow to plant as well.
Ta @Beeker No secret to it, just planted the cloves 4 inches apart, about 12 inches between the rows in October. They need to overwinter for 2 reasons. First to make good root growth and second, they need to get frosted otherwise they might not form individual cloves. You can end up with a solid garlic the size of a small onion Also, don't grow them, or any other onion family on the same bit of ground for the next 3 years. I had 5,000 garlic bulbs on the go till I got onion white rot, it wiped the entire crop out
Garlic is in! My neighbor was raving on how beautiful my soil looks. Sorry, no pics until tomorrow because by the time I was done, it was completely dark out. I checked the ph and it's perfect. My only concern is that the bed was full of weeds, so I mixed in some Jobe's Organic fertilizer with a 4-4-4 balance, so it should be gentle on my garlic. I haven't mulched yet, but we have warm weather for the rest of the week while the leaves fall. My neighbor is giving me her leaves to use as mulch, so that should be perfect. The soil was also teaming with life. There were so many spiders, pill bugs (not the roly polys but the flatter kind) and millipedes. I didn't see my ants anymore. @Zigs - Thank you for the tips. I'll work on prepping the other beds and be sure to rotate. Any tips on companion planting come spring?
Save the hot stuff for green up in spring. Things grow slowly over a cold season and will not eat as much.
5000 not 50000 was the amount. At 10 euros the kilo in the local store, with 50 000 garlic you could be rich
I thought that was a bulb. There has to be 10 parts in a garlic bulb. I always called the seperated pieces cloves like recipes describe?
And they were sad to see you go. Tell me friend, did they request any particular fresh veggies for adult beverages?
Sorry for the delay with the picture. It's just a picture of dirt right now, but it's better than before.
