Fenton Friday: Garlic Planted

Elephant Garlic and "regular" garlic

Thanks to Tony Sarmiento's talk to the Silver Spring Garden Club on Monday, I had the inspiration to get my garlic in this week. Tony showed several kinds of garlic (see pic at left) and shared many planting tips.

One thing Tony advised was to not wash the garlic right after harvesting, but to just brush off the soil. This year, the soil was so wet it was caked on the garlic, so I felt I had to give it a good scrub anyway before hanging them to cure.

The other tip that was new to me was so dip the cloves in a solution of 10% bleach (1 part bleach to 9 parts water) and then plant them immediately (do not dry them off in-between). I have never done that and didn't this year either.

Both of these tips are to guard against fungal and diseases issues, which I have been lucky enough not to be bothered by -- so far.

We cleared out a section of the plot - mercilessly ripping out the last of the tomatoes and some herbs.

We planted three heads of 'Music' (aka 'Porcelain' or 'German White') Garlic, which yielded 16 cloves. One clove was about half the bulb size - very strange, but we planted it anyway.

What is growing in your edible garden this week?

About Fenton Friday: Every Friday during the growing season, I'll be giving you an update on my community garden plot at the Fenton Street Community Garden just across the street from my house. I'm plot #16. It is a 10 ft x 20 ft space and this is our 7th year in the garden. (It opened in May 2011.) See past posts about our edible garden by putting "Fenton" into the Search box above.