Today, along with the usual round of mixed carrots and spring onions, and half a dozen beetroot seedlings, I’m planting garlic. Lots of garlic.
It’s very early for garlic. Conventional wisdom is Anzac Day at the earliest, more traditionally midwinter solstice. But I’ve been planting earlier and earlier, and last year’s early planted garlic did well, albeit that was mid, rather than early Autumn. I don’t know if it is a change in variety or a change in climate, but early seems to be working.
I am planting into pots in my shadehouse, each clove in its own pot, pointy end up, just below the surface in the mix of compost and creek sand in the picture. This is partly because I want to be sure they do all come up planted this early, and partly because the garden is pretty full at the moment and I shall get at least a month’s head start this way. I shall probably plant another round next month as well, as insurance, and because I really don’t want to be buying any Chinese imported garlic this year.
I am also planting potato onions the same way. This is a first for them. Seed catalogues always get me in!
Thanks for the headsup, Linda. It’s still quite warm here in Sydney (31C yesterday), but I think we’ll pop our garlic heads in the fridge now to chill before planting (a tip from Gardening Australia last year)…
Oh me too, me too. It’s probably a little ambitious but I trying them in my pots, I’m staggering the planting and will see what happens. As something dies I’m shoving garlic in.
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Good morning Linda. Did you plant the whole garlic in?
All the garlic has come up – now a good 20cm tall, and this weekend I’ll be planting it out into the garden. I think every single bulb came up, and some that had hidden in my garden and avoided being harvested from last year has come up too, so I should have a good lot for the year. I separate the cloves and plant each clove, pointy end up, just below the surface of the soil. When I plant them out in the garden, I’ll plant them quite close together – at about 15 cm spacing. I put them in groups of about 6 plants, just so I remember where they are to harvest them (obviously not always a successful strategy!). They’re not very tall, and I want to avoid planting them too near the climbing peas, so they’ll go on the northern side of beds with the peas climbing the fence on the southern side (where they won’t shade anything).
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