We’ve past the autumnal equinox so it’s time to plant garlic and shallots for spring.
Last year’s crop was uniformly smaller than the previous year. There are many possible reasons:
- Lack of a mulch layer
- Quail eating the six inch baby plants down to zero inch nubs
- A brutal 24 hour wind in the spring that left the garlic permenantly bent over
All these will be addressed this year. Basically, we are mulching and we are using the insect netting on everything (wind and quail protection).
This year we planted a green manure cover crop (chickpeas) before planting the garlic. A yummy way to improve the soil.
We are stepping up the production of the Maiskij garlic this year. We love it; it grows well here; it tastes great and is easy to peel. Last year we planted about 140 of these.
We are also trying small batches of two garlic varieties, Music and German Porcelain. Both of these have few but very large cloves.
We continued growing shallots this year planting both the French grey ones (small) and the standard red ones again. I could be happy just growing the red ones, but it’s good to grow a variety.
The basics numbers of what’s ing the ground are:
300 Maiskij
14 German Porcelain
17 Music
50 Grey shallots
25 red shallots
Here’s hoping for a big year for alliums at Kbranch