Onions and Garlic

It's hard to believe I've not written much on my blog the latter part of this year. Well, it is a diary and I have not been doing much at the allotment. Life has been keeping me busy but I did plant some japanese onions and some thermidrome garlic a few weeks. (-maybe a couple of months ago!?!)

Today we went to the allotment to pull carrots and look at the overgrown cauliflower. It is past its best - which is criminal seeing as how hard they are to grow.

Results of the Garlic test

Purple Peruvian Garlic - only formed two cloves!

Purple Peruvian on left and Thermidrome on right

Q: Can you grow garlic from the supermarket?

A: No, unless perhaps you are lucky enough to get a variety that is right for our climate etc.

I harvested my first batch garlic today after planting it almost eight months ago. The Thermidrome variety which I got from the organic catalogue all seem to have grown perfectly but the Purple Peruvian variety I got from the supermarket was a failure, the bulbs had formed but were very small, in fact only 2 cloves formed. Fortunately the large majority of the garlic I planted was Thermidrome.

I have chopped all the broad beans down to the ground so the roots are intact under the soil holding on the the nitrogen - I hope!?!

I'm totally unprepared as to what to put in next - doh! I think I could put leeks in the garlic bed or should I start rotating? There are still onions in there. I'm thinking that I could do a few runner beans where I had the calabrese and what about sprouting broccoli where I had the broad beans? I'm not sure but the unplanted ground makes me fidgety!!

The First Garlic Planting

Traditionally with garlic ...

PLANT ON THE SHORTEST DAY, HARVEST ON THE LONGEST DAY... 

Well I have planted mine early - on Halloween, which may help rid the allotment of evil spirits? ... the evil spirits of slugs perhaps!!

With the help of Shannie I cleared another big area of weed roots and put together another bed. We burnt a lot of the weeds that weren't wet in the incinerator. This is a great way to save transporting all the roots to the dump. 

I planted three and a half rows of garlic, two of Thermidrome and one and a half of a purple Peruvian variety I got from Waitrose. I have half a row which I'll plant on the shortest day 21st December - if I remember! 

I made a measuring stick out of a piece of 3x1 which I had at home and used it to perfectly space out the garlic. I've planted the cloves 6'' apart and staggered the rows which are 9" apart.