Oof. I haven't been working out enough lately. I felt like a weekend warrior by the end of Saturday, but I got the garlic planted. And that's a very, very good thing. It might be slightly better in my area to plant it in October, though late September is pretty good, too. Weekends in October are pretty fully booked for me, so it had to be done now. And it's a good job to have done and off my list.
First I had to set up the new 6-foot grow bed. If you click the photos, they will be bigger and maybe clearer. The 6-foot grow bed is really a 3-foot one with a kit to extend it. It adds a metal bar in the center for stability (see it?) and a couple of supports on the side as well. Apart from the fact you need an electric drill and a screwdriver, and the patience to get your ten-thumbed spouse or someone to hold it still while you're drilling and screwing and swearing, (and no, it is not what you think) it's easy to put together.
Anyhoo, there it is, all put together and occupying one of the few still-empty places in my garden plot. The soil underneath this was rock-hard, and every time I see that, I fall to my knees and I pray to the Grow-Bed goddess. I shouted out so everyone in the neighborhood could hear, "Life-Changing! It's life-changing, these grow beds! All hail the grow-bed goddess! I bow at your FEET! All those years that I spent futilely trying to amend this piece of rock! They're OVER! My life is CHANGED!" And I made strange moaning noises, I writhed, and I shed tears of joy.
The neighbors who have small children called them inside.
Then I laid down cardboard and newspapers, because earthworms LOVE cardboard and newspapers, and they will come running. How on God's green earth they are able to come running through the rock-hard clay I will never know. It's one of life's great mysteries, but they definitely have homing devices for cardboard and newspaper, as long as it's moist, but not TOO moist. (Which is really kind of a hoot. I wonder if newspaper and cardboard are earthworms' equivalent of junk food, because surely when God put earthworms on earth, he was not thinking, "I need to put something on this piece of rock to eat the leftover newspapers and cardboard." Because, well, unless I'm wrong, there were no newspapers or cardboard in the Garden of Eden. And have you ever read this article? This just blows my mind. I do not believe it can possibly be true in a million years, but National Geographic magazine is not some fly-by-night publication, so.... well, it just blows my mind, and it has kept me up nights ever since I read it over a year ago. It can't possibly be true, no matter what god or science you believe in. Even if Sarah Palin says it's so.
So I sprayed the cardboard and newspapers with holy water on both sides. I walked around the grow bed three times counterclockwise, while chanting and wishing I had remembered to bring the incense. I added some soil that came from some emptied potted vegetable plants, and a little pile of compost that had been stockpiled. "Stockpiled" means I had not gotten around to doing anything with it.
And I laid on hands and made burnt offerings to my grow bed goddess: Vegetable and fruit cuttings, coffee grounds, rotting stuff from the bottom of the refrigerator bin, and peels from the kitchen. Well, all right, since you forced it out of me, they weren't burnt at all, just slightly moldy.
I had some bean vines to throw in there. Magic bean vines, I have found, can never hurt. Oh, cripes. I made mention of magic. My grow-bed gods are starting to sound like Catholic-Jewish-pagan-Greek gods. I'm such a mixed-up heathen. Maybe that's the problem. Well, one of them, anyway.
Then I emptied two of the compost bins. I forgot to get the camera, because I was busy. And dirty and sweaty and, well, I just forgot. It turns out that the compost bin in which the pumpkins grew was filled with award-winning composted soil. "I made this! I made this beautiful dirt!" I shouted. (The neighbor kids were already inside, so what the hell. David got a kick out of it, though.) More soberly: Hm, I made dirt, and I'm all excited about it. What exactly does that say about me? The garden sometimes makes me get all existential and self-reflective.
So I put the beautiful award-winning dirt that I made over the bean vines and other stuff. I forgot to record this step on film for posterity, but just picture your basic award-winning homemade dirt, and you got the idea. I added some bone meal, because that is really good for root growth, and some lime, because my compost tends to be on the acidic side, what with all the oak leaves in it and stuff.
Now I go inside. I get the lovely garlic that came in the mail this week.
Look at those gorgeous bulbs. If that doesn't get you excited, I don't know what will.
This year I planted three varieties:
I've got Germans and Russians and Chesnoks (where is Chesnok?) in my garden, and I can see Canada from my house. Don't you dare allege that I do not have international policy experience. I could be the next vice president.
To plant the sexy garlic, you pull the cloves off the bulbs of garlic just as if you're going to cook with them. If you find any small ones (I did), just keep those for cooking and eating soon. Garlic is one of those clonal kinds of growing things. If you plant a small one, it'll take the same amount of growing space, but you'll get a puny bulb of garlic. If you only plant the big virile ones, presumably you'll reap what you sow -- all other things working in your favor, of course. And if you pray.
Here are the cloves, ready to plant. Each clove will, God willing, turn into a bulb. See the pointy ends and the "root" ends? Well, as you'd expect, you should put the root ends down, and the pointy ends sticking up. I mean, garlic is smarter than Sarah Palin, but not so smart that if you plant it upside down, it will know what to do. You gotta give it a little bit of help.
This is what it looks like stuck into the soil:
And here is a nice grid of them in my grow bed:
Tell me that doesn't turn you on.
I plant them about 6-8 inches apart in all directions. They are probably closer to 6 than they are to 8, but I read on the internet that 8 is optimum. (Leave that alone. I'm not going there.)
Cover them with 2-3 inches of soil, and then mulch heavily with hay or straw, or even grass clippings. About 3 or 4 inches of mulch is ideal, at least where I live in the frigid north. (Did you know that Vermont has a trade agreement with Switzerland? I could totally run for veep. That was just a little aside. Forget I said that.)
Okay. Here we are with the bed all ready for mulching. David has an instruction to find some hay somewhere in the next few weeks and put it on there. He usually does pretty much whatever I tell him to do, so I think we're sittin' fat here. I know it doesn't look like there's room for 3 or 4 inches of mulch on there, but because I have some vines and stuff in there under the soil, I know that this will settle quite a bit in the next couple of weeks, and once again we'll be sittin' fat. (Don't I sound really folksy by leaving off my g's on my -ing endings and using colloquialisms local expressions funny words? I could be veep, except I never almost won a beauty contest.)
If one has thought ahead with one of these six-foot beds, one could successfully hide a body that one has recently knocked off. I'm just sayin'. <----I only use that expression very judiciously. I'm just sayin'.
Fingers crossed that we get a reallyreallyreallyreally good crop of garlic next year. I had more bulbs than I could fit in the 3X6 grow bed, so I used another 3X3 bed that was ready for fall planting, in addition. And then I went loopy and planted yet another bed with garlic I got at my local farm stand. After this I should not need to purchase garlic for fall planting for the rest of my life -- I should have enough of my own to be able to continue planting it in perpetuity, assuming I store it well after harvesting next summer. And I shouldn't be bothered by witches or vampires, either. Well, God willing.
And my reward for a hard day's work:
Mixed greens, broccoli, zucchini, and baby beets for dinner.
Really, the reward? A double-shot frozen black raspberry daiquiri made with black raspberries I froze from my garden this summer. They're almost gone, and I gotta tell you -- that drink was pure Heaven. Alcohol for pain control (I'm allergic to antiinflammatories. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.) and antioxidants, phytochemicals, and vitamins. It's a win-win-win cocktail.
Gut yontiff.
P.S. I have to stop writing such long entries. Ally's gonna be late for her exam.
But hey, if you love garlic, maybe you'd like to donate to the Red Scarf Fund in honor of garlic. Or bad breath. Or Rosh Hashana. Or my pagan grow bed goddess. Or autumn leaves. Or Sarah Palin. Or for no reason at all, except to encourage former foster kids to stay in college.
(click for bigger)
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