Garlic Planting - Finally!

Well, I finally found the time today, and the weather cooperated, so that I could plant my garlic. It seems like for the last two months, I either haven't had the time to plant, or if I had a free moment, it was either below freezing or pouring rain. I was a bit nervous about the state in which I would find my stored bulbs. But I was really pleased to discover that they were still fairly firm and heavy. The "Music" were the most dried out but it was completely my fault. Since I brought them back from Maine this Fall, they have lived in a sack on my dresser. Not exactly a cool, dark place. On the other hand, the "Russian Red" not only had good substance but they were actually sprouting.

A group of divided "Chesnook Red" cloves.

And 6 fat "Russian Red" cloves.

As you can see, this clove has started to sprout! It is more than ready to be planted. So, after dividing the bulbs into individual cloves, I went to work building a long raised bed in the Kitchen Garden. Then I laid out the cloves. I planted 18 "Music" and 15 "Chesnook Red" in this bed. I also planted 6 "Russian Red" cloves over in the overflow garden by the kitchen. It's almost 3 months later than I would liked to have planted these cloves and a full month later than I planted last year. But better late than never. It will be an interesting experiment to compare the final weights of this year's January planted garlic bulbs to previous year's October-December planted weights.