Snow, garlic and yet more snow

What a strange 12 months of weather we have had, a near drought during the latter part of the summer and serious winter conditions during December and January. Such weather has made it more difficult to get into the garden and achieve anything; in fact the last of the snow only disappeared this weekend.

By some good fortune I have got myself organised and managed to get the garlic in the ground before over Christmas, this year, like last year I’m growing Solent Wight which is a relatively strong variety that thus far seems to have kept very well indeed.

With the proper preparation, garlic can be one of the easiest crops to grow. The first step is to prepare the bed; I fork a good amount of garden compost into the bed after I have dug it over and then allow it to settle for a few weeks. I will then rake in some general purpose fertiliser such as blood fish and bone and cover the bed with weed control fabric. Take a sharp knife and cut a slit at the appropriate spacing (about 6 inches is good). As the soil should be fairly light from the raking you can simply push each clove into the ground, through the slit in the weed control fabric (pointy end up).

Apart from making sure the initial garlic stems come through the slits, there very little to do until harvesting in June – August, although you can add a mild general purpose fertiliser periodically during the growing season if you desire.

Garlic Solent Wight£4.75

Garlic Lautrec Wight£4.75