Garlic To Ground

There is much to see in this picture.  Weeds are everywhere since we simply could not keep up this year.  In the distant past, I would work here under the blazing sun totally soaking my clothes with perspiration.  As the shirt dried concentric circles of white salt deposits appeared across the chest strongly resembling hippy art work.  The year before my cancers were found, I simply could not tolerate the heat anymore.  Now the time that I can work outside is severely limited allowing the weeds to spread unchecked.  This planting bed is eighteen feet long and five feet wide.  The Ames cart serves as both a seat and a tool box.  A hand cultivator with one tine works wonders in removing the weeds intact while deeply loosening the soil.  The blue trug transports the pulled weeds to a compost pile.  The white clothes both screen out the sun and discourage insects.  Strangers find my overall appearance troubling so we are seldom bothered by punks.

In response to garlic disease we now soak and peel the cloves.  A vodka bath completes the rot control.  The time needed to peel the cloves without causing damage is enormous but we have nearly eliminated the deadly fungus.  Before peeling, we relied on the appearance of the fully covered cloves.  Then the rot was so severe the problem could be seen or felt.  Now it remains small and hidden so we must search it out.

Last year's crop was planted in land that had not seen garlic or onions for a full decade.  We did grow infected garlic there once but felt that this ground would now be safe to use.  Wrong again.  We planted 40 cloves of garlic given to us by Helen.  Both the garlic and the person were special and we expected a good harvest.  All 40 cloves sent up strong looking growth early but then death swept across those plants.  We harvested only 6 plants and expected the worst when they were peeled prior to planting.  None of those survivors displayed any sign of disease and we simply cannot understand how that happened.  28 cloves were planted and we are hopeful that their miracle will continue.  Helen is no longer with us and we really want to keep her garlic growing here.

Former students may remember that I am a bit fussy about neatness.  Using two pieces of welded wire fencing with one rotated 90 degrees, a grid of two inch squares covers the ground.  Uniform spacing and straight alignment quickly follows.  Each row becomes home to 10 cloves and there are 21 rows.

This infected clove is unusual in that the problem is near the tip.  Usually the rot forms nearer the base at the source of the roots.  This infection is so small that it would have gone undetected if the clove had not been peeled.  We found only three bad cloves from 170 peeled until we got to the last variety.  The forty White Bishops gave us 6 disgustingly rotten cloves.  Here is another puzzle since the plants looked great at harvest and the bulbs felt solid.  So once again we have planted peeled cloves that also were soaked in vodka just prior to planting.  I do not know if the purpose of the vodka was to sterilize or to make the cloves happy. 

Planting vegetables as winter approaches is unusual.  That is a factor in what makes garlic so special to us.  The plants will appear when it is way to early for garden planting.  An appropriate end to this year's garden and an early promise of the start of the next garden.  Our usual planting time was closer to mid October to coincide with my father's birthday.  Conditions seemed perfect to plant early and I am confident that he would have approved of that decision.
 

All In

This is the last of our five named garlic varieties to be planted.  Several years ago it was discovered at a new plant and vegetable stand near Canadarago Lake.  Richfield Springs is an easier name and that is the one we use.  The garlic epidemic was raging at the time and this otherwise desirable variety has long been a problem.  Once again the cloves separated from the bulbs were impressively sized and firm.  Green tips are new to us but so many of the cloves displayed them that they had to be planted.  The golden tip in the picture  appeared on this single bulb.  We chose not to plant this one.  Twenty of the cloves showing green were planted in the last two rows of the bed.  With this written record we can make an informed decision about this variety at harvest time.  The green may just be the result of a strong desire to get growing.

Quack grass is our other unsolvable problem.  It is widespread in our former pastures that we mow for lawns.  Hours are spent trying to remove it from the planting beds but it always returns.  Our neighbor had established a beautiful garden that included a raised water feature.  He made a considerable effort to remove this invasive weeds return from his garden.  Not all of the long horizontal root pieces were pulled out so the new green leaf tips quickly returned.  His water pond liner wound up roadside and the garden was flattened and made lawn.  We haven't quit yet but planting beds have been lost to this pest.

A Cobra Head hand cultivator is our primary garden tool.  Even old arms can pull it through the soil removing weeds in the process.  Still hidden roots sometimes remain with new growth quickly reappearing.  These two impressively long pieces were today removed from ground that we had just recently weeded. A smaller piece was also removed from the new garlic bed where we had been persistent and diligent in our attempts to remove this pest.

 This closeup shows the return power of this plant.  I falsely believe that even the scent from a broken root can regrow.  Further attempts to remove this pest from the now planted garlic bed will likely disturb the cloves so we will simply break off any green leaves that push their way out of the ground.  Yesterday the peeled but unplanted cloves were an ingredient in  Garlic chicken for dinner.  It was fantastic and the leftovers will be even better.  Is their a better way to spend these clear October days?