Planting Garlic

Garlic is an easy plant to start off our growing, and as it’s nice and mild at the moment it won’t too hard to get out into the garden after the Christmas break. Nearly everybody uses garlic now in everyday cooking and there is nothing better than being able to use your own - it always tastes better.
Garlic bulbs are easily available and all you have to do is break them up into the individual cloves. Peel off the outer skin carefully, it makes sure your cloves are free from any fungus that might cause problems later. Plant cloves root down , approx. 2" deep and about 6 " apart in an area that gets sun or only light shade . They like free draining soil so if your soil is heavy or clay consider using sand/grit under the plants to improve drainage. Another solution is to use a raised be to improve drainage from the soil. Garlic likes cold weather so don’t mind if the weather turns cold after planting, so long as we don’t have an extended cold spell like last year ( -15 !)
We will return to our garlic later in the season to make sure we get the best crop we can.

Happy Gardening.