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Finished planting the garlic for next year. It appears I may not have left enough space between clusters for the mini-tiller to pass, so I may have to perform surgery in the spring 🙁

In any case, again from west to east, in rows and columns of three, we have

• Portugal #1, generation 2, 8 columns of 3, for 24 cloves
• Portugal #2, generation 2, 8 columns of 3, for 24 cloves
• Red Grain, generation 0, 12 columns of 3, for 36 cloves

Then a gap, and then the final set of clusters, west to east

• Choparsky, generation 2, 9 columns of 3, for 27 cloves
• Duganski, generation 2, 5 columns of 3, for 15 cloves
• Irkutsk, generation 0, 4 columns of 3 plus 2 more cloves in the two northernmost holes, for 14 cloves, and
• Ural Mountain, generation 2, 1 clove in the last hole with the Irkutsk.

All told, this makes another 141 cloves. With the 93 from the other day, that makes a grand total of 234 plants.

A little bit late, due to weather, etc.

Today I planted, in blocks of three (3) rows, from west to east

• Leningrad, generation 2, eight (8) columns, for a total of 24
• Leningrad, generation 0,[ref]Generation 0 indicates that these were purchased from the vendor (Golden Acres Garlic Farm). At each harvest, cloves retained for the next planting have their generation number incremented by one.[/ref] three (3) columns, for a total of 9[ref]These two Leningrad blocks are contiguous and not separated by marker.[/ref]
• Persian Star, generation 2, eight (8) columns, for a total of 24[ref]Somehow, I ended up planting only 22, it seems. But I remember having been unsure of which column to put the cloves into at one point, so it is possible/likely that I doubled up one of the previous columns on two (2) occasions, in which case, it will be a matter of moving the doubled cloves to the last column once they come up in the spring.[/ref]
• Siberian Hot, generation 2, four (4) columns, for a total of 12, and
• Khabar,[ref]The vendor has told me that this is a variant on Persian Star, but with larger cloves.[/ref] generation 2, eight (8) columns, for a total of 24.

This makes 93 cloves planted today, all told.

As the downpours have temporarily halted and the ground has dried sufficiently to be somewhat (!) workable, I did a bit of planting today.

White Spanish onions

First, I planted some White Spanish onions in front of the house in the spaces between the six grape tomato plants I planted the other day (and forgot to log here).

This involved a little bit of preparation to get rid of the weeds which have started to grow, followed by the distribution of a handful of onion sets which I bought the other day. There was no particular count; it was a spur-of-the-moment purchase as it’s a wet year—I’ve had no luck with onions in the past….

Yukon Gem potatoes

I had also bought 6 Yukon Gem seed potatoes and planted them in the southern part of the garlic patch.

To make sure I know where they are later, I made 18″ stakes out of rips from 2 by 6s or the like which I had lying around. In the past, I’ve always used bamboo canes, but they are very fragile and tend to break and get lost.

I’ll add a diagram in due course; I have more potatoes to plant, but this involves mounting the loader on the tractor (so that I can add some soil to the southern portion of the garlic patch, where it’s low), and I’ve no time left for that today.

Two days ago, I did a survey of the garlic patch. I was quite pleased with the results: most of the garlic I had planted last fall came up, and is growing well thanks to the rain. The main concern will be the potential for rot if the downpours continue.

Here’s a photo of my hand-written survey. North is at the bottom of the page.

Legend:

• (mostly) open circle: successfully growing plant
• stand-alone filled circle: bamboo separator
• ‘2’ means that two plants are growing rather than one
• ‘x’ means that nothing is growing there (either nothing was planted or else the clove has rotted etc.)

Garlic types are annotated,[ref]As one can see from the diagram, I have resolved the ‘Irkutsk’ confusion I alluded to in the fall; given the number of columns all told, it would appear I did in fact only plant 3 cloves of Irkutsk.[/ref] as are the occasional ‘volunteer’ plants.

The dotted circles represent patches in which I planted garlic seeds; the sprouts can be used as a kind of garlic chive.

Today I planted an additional block of garlic, again in three rows, south of the ones I had planted the other day.

From west to east, I planted

• 4 columns of Leningrad, for 12 all told
• 2 (?) columns of Irkutsk, for 6 all told[ref]I wrote ‘Irkutsk x 6’ on the pad but only drew 3; I think that’s because I initially did 3 and as an afterthought added three more. Best check the number of columns when they come up.[/ref]
• 3 columns of Portugal #1, for 9 all told
• 4 columns of Choparski, for 12 all told
• 1 clove of Khabor in the northernmost hold and 1 clove of Carpathian in each of the other two holes
• 1 column of Carpathian (so between this and the previous column, 5 Carpathian all told)

Today I planted the garlic I bought from Golden Acres. It is all planted in blocks 3 plants wide and so and so many deep. I left one empty row between blocks with a stake in the centre hole.

Starting at the northwest corner of the triangle in Dann’s field, I have

• Leningrad, first generation, 7 rows plus one in the northernmost slot of the 8th row for a total of 22 plants
• Khabor, first generation, 5 rows for a total of 15 plants; this is a Persian Star substitute with much larger cloves
• Persian Star, first generation, 8 rows for a total of 24 plants
• Ural Mountain, first generation, 4 rows for a total of 12 plants; this is a Siberian substitute
• Siberian Hot, first generation, 8 rows for a total of 24 plants; I actually forgot to record the location but based on the layout this seems to be the place (the alternative is that it is where I thought the Duganski is and vice versa; however checking two cloves in the ground suggests this is correct and we can compare bulbs at harvest time; the Duganski ought to be larger).

I left space for the mini-tiller to pass between this and the next set of blocks to the south so as to have 26″ from the centre of the southernmost clove of the northern block to the northernmost clove of the southern block.

In the second row of blocks, I have

• Portugal #1, first generation, 5 rows for a total of 15 plants
• Duganski, first generation, 8 rows for a total of 24 plants
• Irkutsk, first generation, 5 rows for a total of 15 plants
• Portugal #2, first generation, 4 rows, for a total of 12 plants
• Choparsky, first generation, 4 rows, for a total of 12 plants
• Carpathian, first generation, 4 rows, for a total of 12 plants.

This makes 187 plants from Golden Acres stock all told.

“First generation” means that they came directly from Golden Acres. “Second generation” would be those I harvest in 2019, etc.

This morning, I finished tilling the triangular portion of earth which is just south of our driveway. In the afternoon, I fabricated a template for spacing garlic in three rows with 7″ between rows and 7″ between plants in a row.

Then I began to plant the garlic in sets of three rows, beginning at the northwest corner, sets running north to south, and within sets from west to east.

• first set of three rows:
  • Leningrad (from Golden Acres), 38 cloves; the last two cloves were in the northernmost and next northernmost slots (i.e. leaving the southernmost slot vacant)
  • skipped 2 rows (thus leaving 21″ between this and the next group
  • Leningrad (from my own August 2017 harvest), 69 cloves; this ended the first 3-row set
• skipped 16″ southward before setting up the next set of 3 rows (such that from any hole in the first set to the corresponding hole in the second set was 30″)
• second set of three rows:
  • Irkutsk (from Golden Acres), 17 cloves; the last two cloves in the northernmost and next northernmost slots
  • skipped 2 rows
  • Choparsky (from Golden Acres), 13 cloves; the last clove in the northernmost slot
  • skipped 2 rows
  • Carpathian (from Golden Acres), 8 cloves; the last two cloves in the northernmost and next northernmost slots.

Given the temperature, that was enough for today. I brought in my Siberian harvest to prepare for the next planting session.

From the Panasonic breadmaker book.

From Curry Cuisine, p. 130.