Garlic, Garlic Everywhere

After seeing how amazingly well the onions are doing, I was tempted to grow garlic too!  I used much the same procedure as with the onions, just pressing my trowel into the mulch, wiggling it to reach the soil underneath about 2 inches, plopping it in with the pointy side up (root side down), and pressing the hole closed.  All this wiggling had a VERY unexpected result... I will try to replicate this and take a video for you.

 Garlic in a wiggled trowel hole

I broke off the largest of the cloves on about 6 different bulbs (the larger the clove, the larger the bulb that is supposed to grow from it, and keep the skin on when planting), and ended up with 75 cloves planted 2-3 inches deep.  25 of those are smaller cloves planted very close together for use as garlic greens in stir-fries, and 50 are destined to be braided and hung for storage (neither of which I have ever attempted to do)... that is, if they work out!

All those little sap-sucking vampires (aphids!) are repelled by garlic, so I have placed the cloves in some potted lettuce, and in a row like sentinels around the more delicate seedlings for protection.

The most precocious of the cloves looks pretty delicate.

Garlic is actually very winter-hardy and likes a long cold spell before growing its greens, so I am theoretically starting my garlic much too late in the season.  Next year I'll plant them on the winter solstice (shortest day of the year), and harvest on the summer solstice (longest day)... lore says that's how you're supposed to do it, and I'd like to see if it improves the quality of the garlic.  Plus, it'll give me something gardeny to do in winter.

Here's my favorite way to eat garlic!  And yes, that means I have finally started up Leaves In My Cup.