The field slopes quite a bit more at that point, so the soil in the box needed topping up, which I did yesterday afternoon with the tractor.

Today, I planted the garlic in four north/south columns, beginning from the west side and leaving a 2″ margin before the first column. Cloves are spaced 5″ apart within a column with a 2.5″ margin at the top and bottom.

This allows for 24 rows, which I planted as follows, beginning at the south end and working my way towards the driveway:

1. Leningrad, 3 rows
2. Metechi, 2 rows
3. Portugal #1, 2 rows
4. Portugal #2, 2 rows
5. Irkutsk, 2 rows
6. Leningrad, 3 rows
7. Metechi, 2 rows
8. Portugal #1, 3 rows
9. Portugal #2, 1 row
10. Irkutsk, 1 row
11. Leningrad, 3 rows.

The types are interspersed so that in the event of a problem in one part of the bed, the entire harvest for that type is less likely to fail.

They’re a few years old, at least, so they may not come up; but, as they’re already here, it costs me nothing, and I was able to put them just west of the raised bed box where I couldn’t put anything else anyway.

We shall see!

Tree planting

My first task was to start with the planting of seedlings. I read the instructions, which suggested I till the soil to keep weed competition down, so I went into the shed and got out the mini tiller. I was gratified to find that it started right up! I’m getting better at this overwintering business

Then I got out one bundle of cedars, which is a ten count, dug holes with the spade, and placed them into the first two gaps in the cedar row where they had died out. Then added some water to start them off. 6L deep watering once a week, they said. But I have to do this by hand for now,¹⁾Meaning using a watering can rather than a hose. so I’ll have to adapt.

While I had the mini tiller out, I ran it up and down the garlic rows and so on to get rid of weeds.

Levelling the raised bed

The other day, the farmer’s wife told me he was planning to come and fill the raised bed box he’d given me, so I hurried over to the menure pile he’d put for me behind our property while I still could (once he’s planted, it’s much harder), and put some in the bottom. That night, he came with his tractor and put a bucket load of topsoil into it.

Today I decided to try to level it. Sure enough, it was several inches down over 10 feet, and I imagine it works best in terms of rainfall when it’s level, so I got my little tractor and used the bucket to raise the two low corners, backfilling the run-off with the spade.

Then it was no longer all that full, so I took two bucket loads (my buckets being of course much smaller) of topsoil from a pile I had left over from putting in a second driveway in front of my shed, and levelled it off.

When I’d done that, I ran the tractor tiller a last time over the area the farmer had had his tractor over, then went to the back of the yard and took it off.

First plantings

I took a look at the seeds I’d bought the other day, and decided on parsnips, celeriac, and lettuce, which I planted as follows:

• parsnips (Hollow Crown Improved), first row in the triangle east of the raised bed and south of the driveway, along it
• another half row south of that with the remaining parsnip seeds
• celeriac (Giant Prague) in the remaining half row
• leaf lettuce (Grand Rapids), one package spread over two east/west rows on either side of the garlic rows behind the house
• leaf lettuce (Outrageous Red), southernmost row in the raised bed, one half packet²⁾Leaving the rest to plant later.
• leaf lettuce (Lollo Biondi), one row north of the previous, again one half packet.

Bagpipe practice!

And in-between all this, I think three times in all, I practiced the Leicestershire bagpipe for the second time this year!

I’d have done it sooner, but the weather wasn’t cooperating, and once it did, I had my left index finger bandaged due to the silly mitre saw wound.

The tune was Dorset Four Hand Reel, by the way. I almost know it now!

Seed packet images

Our neighbour had kindly donated a 5′ x 10′ box for a raised garden, so I placed it north/south just east of the original row of potatoes.

Then I took the ‘golden gems’¹⁾Very small Yukon Gold species. which had sprouted and I had not yet planted, and put 6 in to the east of the box, and 6 in an inverted triangle²⁾Tip pointing south. to the south of the box.

It was a nice day today (18C), so I removed the snowblower from the tractor, mounted the front loader, removed the backhoe, mounted the tiller, and then tilled the part of the triangular plot south of our driveway to the extent it didn’t have parsnips and garlic growing.

I didn’t experience too much difficulty with the implements this time, and I remembered to remove the drive shaft, too!

Transplanting volunteer garlic

There were 53 volunteer garlic plants, so I dug them up and moved them to the area between the parsnips and the garlic (see the featured image); I planted 15 of the bigger bulbs singly, and the rest in clumps.

First potato planting

In the evening, I remembered that I had wanted to plant some Golden Gems (mini Yukon Gold potatoes) as we’d had some which had sprouted. As it was getting late, I only planted 6 in a N/S row between the driveway and the beginning of the two columns of garlic seen in the photo above.

When we have another nice day, I’ll plant more

Prepraring the area occurred in three steps:

1. I put some cardboard on the proposed extension area, i.e., an area roughly equal in size to what was already there and adjacent and to the south of it. Some friends of ours had suggested this as a way to keep down the invasion of grass and weeds. It can’t hurt, so why not.
2. Our next door neighbour Matt had kindly dropped off some manure into the pile which he has for me in the corner of his property adjoining the northeast corner of our lot some time back, so I fetched a tractor-bucket load of it and dumped on the cardboard, then evened it out with a rake.
3. Finally, I then got a bucket-load of topsoil from the pile I had left from excavating the foundation for my steel shed, and put that on top and smoothed it out as well.

With the area prepared, I planted two more east/west rows, again at 18″ intervals. Here’s what I planted:

• In the first row (heading south),
  • 5 cloves of Metechi at the west end, and
  • 4 cloves of Irkutsk at the east end;
• In the second row (i.e., the southernmost one),
  • 2 cloves of Irkutsk at the west end, and
  • 6 cloves of Portugal #1.

I planted all of those varieties in the triangle plot, but I’m learning to treat garlic as I would a stock portfolio (if I were richer than I am)—diversify!²⁾This helps to protect the ‘investment’ in the event that there is a local pest infestation or the climatic conditions are better in one spot than the other (our lot is heavily treed so that’s a distinct possibility here).

This time, I used a portion of the corner of the neighbour’s field kindly on loan to me where I had not previously planted garlic, i.e., the southwestern tip, as follows:

• column closest to the road
  • 12 cloves of Irkutsk at the north end
  • 14 cloves of Portugal #1 at the south end
• column one in from that
  • 13 cloves of Portugal #2 at the north end
  • 13 cloves of Metechi¹⁾I’ve never grown this type before; apparently it is similar to Persian Star only larger. Jennie likes Persian Star but the cloves always come out so small that they are far too much work, so I’ve given up on those. at the south end.

My harvest this year was pitiful, so I bought new starter bulbs from Golden Acres garlic farm. I spent a half or so going through the bags and breaking up some bulbs into cloves to come up with a preliminary plan. I have some bulbs left of each variety if I decide to plant more.

So today, I decided to start with the Leningrad variety and set aside 30 cloves. I planted it in two places (just like with stocks, it’s a good idea to diversify!):

• behind the house, in a patch which I started this year for tomatoes and lettuce, I planted two rows from east to west of 9 cloves each spaced 6″ apart and with 16″ between the rows to allow for the mini-tiller to pass through, and
• in the triangular area south of our driveway kindly on loan to me by our neighbours, I planted the remaining 12 cloves south of and parallel to the parsnips which I planted there earlier this year (which I am leaving to overwinter as it improves the flavour tremendously). The spacing between cloves was also 6″, and this was new ‘garlic territory’.

Depending on weather and time, I’ll continue with the remaining varieties, which should fit in the southern tip of the triangle, again in a spot I’ve never planted garlic before.

In the past, when I had more space at my disposal, I practiced crop rotation fairly diligently, but I haven’t the last few years, and it shows: the cloves have been infested. I don’t use any kinds of repellents, so this is to be expected to some extent; but I’m hoping to have some decent return next summer.