Saturday, November 10

Playing safe.

You may remember that last year I planted garlic in three different ways. I posted about it here.

 One lot was planted directly in the ground on the plot, another lot was planted in small pots to be transplanted onto the plot later and a third lot was planted in  tubs that were like the pots kept in our cold garden greenhouse to be lifted outside at a later date.

At harvesting time I found that the cloves planted directly on the plot and those planted in tubs out performed those that were started in pots and transplanted. The garlic didn't seem to appreciate the disturbance. Even though in the past I have grown garlic successfully in this way, I decided this year I would employ only the two most successful methods. 

Our soil is fairly heavy clay that can become very soggy during winter - last year the drier winter maybe provided better conditions for directly planted garlic but already this year the ground is very wet. For this reason I decided to have a back-up plan and plant garlic in tubs as well as planting outdoors.

I also decided to restrict myself to just two varieties Early Purple Wight - a hard neck type - and Provence Wight - a soft neck type and also Elephant garlic. 

Cloves were planted outdoors at the same time as the autumn planted onions and in the same bed in mid October.

I kept back a bulb of each ordinary garlic variety which have now been planted in a long trough.
and five cloves of elephant garlic which have now been planted in a large pot.
The cloves were completely covered after taking the photos. 

If you want to read about last year's garlic growing experiences there is a summary on our website here

Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author by S Garrett
at

7 comments:

  1. LizNovember 10, 2012

    i'm harvesting the first few lots of my garlic at the moment. Strangely none of my hardneck garlic has flowered though. Not enough sun I suspect. It is forming okay-ish heads though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sue GarrettNovember 10, 2012

      Story of our lives here this year, Liz - not enough sun.

      Delete
  2. allotments4youNovember 10, 2012

    I still have to get my garlic in. I am hoping to do it this afternoon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sue GarrettNovember 10, 2012

      Then we just have to hope it grows don't we?

      Delete
    2. Tanya.November 10, 2012

      That's what I do every time I plant something!!

      Delete
  3. JoNovember 10, 2012

    It sounds like a sensible approach. I'm always pleased when I hear of something doing well in containers, as it means that so many more people can enjoy gardening. There's many people without gardens or places to grow veg, but most people have room for a container or two.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sue GarrettNovember 10, 2012

      At least I can stop the garlic in containers from being waterlogged, Jo which they are at risk of on the plot!

      Delete

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment - it is great to hear from you and know that there are people out there actually reading what I write! Come back soon.
(By the way any comments just to promote a commercial site, or any comments not directly linked to the theme of my blog, will be deleted)
I am getting quite a lot of spam. It is not published and is just deleted. I have stopped sifting through it and just delete any that ends up in my spam folder in one go so I am sorry if one of your messages is deleted accidentally.
Comments to posts over five days old are all moderated.