It Was The Perfect Day For Planting Garlic

Planting Garlic, Reflections,

Sunday, October 20th the weather was the perfect for just about any type of outdoor activity (except snowmobiling, snow shoeing, ice fishing or anything else the requires temperatures to be freezing or below). We reached a high temp of 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 Celsius), the sky was mostly clear and there was little if any wind.

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We were surrounded by beautiful fall colors.

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The chickens were happily doing what chickens do.

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Our activity of choice was planting garlic, or playing in the dirt as we prefer to call it. This year planting did not take nearly as long as it has in the past, mostly because of the small amount that we had to plant. If you are a regular reader you probably remember that our harvest this year was much smaller than we had hoped, and that we had fewer bulbs that would be large enough to use as seed. We ended up with between 450 and 500 cloves planted. Much less than we have planted in years past.

A couple other things made our task easier. We try to rotate our crops at least every two years so this year we planted in a new location. We have not used this area for gardening in the past, but when my husband tilled the soil it was a moist loam which made pushing the cloves into the ground very easy. If the soil is too wet or too dry planting can be more difficult.

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The other thing that made for light(er) work was this weed guard mat that we used. The mat is made from a heavy biodegradable, organic paper. It is pre-scored so that we could simply punch out the hole while pushing our garlic clove into the ground.

In past years we have not used the weed guard because we were concerned the mat would shift and the garlic sprouts would not be able to find their way through the holes.

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To hold the mat in place my husband was able to get these broken or damaged paving stones from his landscaping job. While they might not have been suitable for building walkways or patios they were perfect for our needs. Remember One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Treasure.

Once we had the weed guard rolled out we were able to get the planting done much quicker than in past years when we have used 4×8 sheets of lattice for our planting grid.

After we planted all of the garlic we put a temporary fence around it as an added protection, because while the paver stones may keep the wind from blowing the weed guard they may not hold up as well against deer running across it.

Ideally the weed guard will serve to keep the weeds down and help the soil retain moisture, lessening the time and effort that we will have to spend watering and weeding next spring and summer.

So with a “WOO HOO” (I always say that when we finish planting garlic) and a prayer of thanks our 2020 garlic season is under way.

Thanks for visiting.

 

32 thoughts on “It Was The Perfect Day For Planting Garlic”

  1. Pingback: The Garlic is Planted | Don't Eat It! Soap and Skin Care
  2. Pingback: Winter Farm Update | Don't Eat It! Soap and Skin Care

  3. Hey Ruth – excellent – l am hoping to plant my garlic out this week – l have just ordered some compostable sheep’s wool matting to protect as your biopaper does – hopefully your next garlic crop will be yielding better results for you.

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    1. Thanks Deb. The fall colors are great this year. We have had lots of wind this week so the leaves are coming down pretty quick. I think I like to here the “crunch” while walking through them as much as I like seeing the colors on the trees.

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      1. Thanks Ruth – my mom always said that expression too. I just heard the 7:08 a.m. forecast on WWJ and he makes it sound like it is later in the evening – the only reason they are worried about the rain is the big college football games are in Michigan this Saturday. I have Flame Furnace coming that afternoon in a noon to 5:00 window so I’m hoping the rain holds off til they are done.

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      2. It seems that the weather forecasters can’t get a handle on the timing of the rain for this weekend – so it is what it is and we will just have to be ready to deal with it. Same for this winter and next spring.

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      3. The weather forecasters are not that accurate anymore due to using the models. For years I’ve hung onto Paul Gross’ forecasts and started following him on Twitter for his daily detailed posts. But a couple of months ago, he stopped doing those daily post. I thought maybe he was subbing for Brandon Roux every morning during Roux’ back surgery, but Roux is back. I’ve switched to listening to Mark Terragrossa at M-Live. He seems to be better at predictions of late:
        https://www.mlive.com/news/g66l-2019/10/722532a5a73357/michigans-weekend-weather-is-split-two-ways-wet-and-dry-south-and-north.html

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      5. There is a guy on Facebook who runs a site called: SE Michigan SnowFreaks. It is for people who like snow. I found out about it when the Click on Detroit meteorologists got so many forecasts wrong in a row that someone said “follow this guy – he’s never wrong!” People follow him who are not snow lovers (like me). He was accurate more often than not and about ten days ago he said there might be snow for Halloween. This was not discussed anywhere else. So yes he is good, but last year he decided to charge for his services and set up a “Patreon” account, He still gives general weather forecasts (like this one ten days ago which appears to be accurate), but the in-depth reports you have to pay for. I am cheap and I’ve not paid for his services. But he was right on snowfall by inches as well. If you’re on Facebook, he is here: https://www.facebook.com/MISnowFreaks/

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      7. You are not missing much Ruth. I have one friend who only uses FB to communicate now and I follow the local parks and “birding places” and the news. I don’t have TV so I get all my news online or on WWJ AM radio. I looked to see what he charged, though I would not contribute to him or anyone else for the weather and it is $5.99/month or $8.99 a month if you have questions you want answered!

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      9. I agree with you Ruth. My mom was having some difficulties getting into her chair as it was so low. We tried another chair and it was too wide to go into the doorway to the TV room and she was too far from the TV to hear it. She was stubborn and would not get rid of the chair that matched the couch, so we just kind of stopped watching TV. When she was confined to bed, I took an old VCR that no longer recorded but was fine for playback and set it up in her room and we taped some movies and watched them there. After she passed away, I just cancelled the cable all together … that’s been since 2010 and when I upgraded my Comcast to a higher internet speed when I started working from home, I got free basic cable and I never used it. I really don’t miss TV and if I want the news I listen on the radio and watch the news videos online or follow news stations to WWJ and Click on Detroit on Facebook.

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