Garlic

As I've mentioned before I've had some good success with garlic in Christchurch. Garlic requires quite rich soil as it has very short roots. The soil in my raised beds is a mixture of saw dust, pig manure, chicken manure and few other goodies which seems to work.

Around this time last year I visited our local organic green grocer and purchased a few bulbs of organic garlic. I broke these up into the individual cloves and planted the larger ones. Traditionally garlic is planted on the shortest day and harvested on the longest day. Mine was planted just before the shortest day and harvested mid Janurary.

Planting garlic is quite simple. After the soil has had compost spread on it use the handle of a fork to press holes about 50mm deep and 150mm apart. Drop the cloves into the holes, pointy end up and cover with soil/compost. Then place a layer of straw or mulch on top to protect the new growths from frost.

The garlic can be harvested and used at any time, after it has grown but for best storage it seems better to leave it in the ground until the top growth has completely dried out.