Seems like I just posted a little piece on here about planting garlic, but another year has passed already. Mid October is about the right time to plant garlic in this part of the world, (central New York state) and this past Sunday we set in 106 cloves of six different varieties.
Last year (2008) we only planted one variety. We waited a little too late and ended up buying our seed garlic from a nice old guy at the regional market. He didn't know for sure what variety he had, but it looked good so we went with it. It was a white hard neck variety that for lack of certainty we called it a New York White Hard Neck. After harvesting this past summer we have determined that it is most likely Music, a fairly common, easy to grow hard neck.
We have been growing garlic for well over a decade now and normally grow several varieties. Last year was an off year for us, procrastination I guess.
In the early years of our garlic cultivating we purchased our seed garlic from a garlic farm in Fulton, New York. This place was great! They grew dozens of varieties and were very helpful. We even took a garlic growing seminar there. Sadly they are no longer in business.
This year not wanting to wait too late and fall back into a repeat of last year we (Debe) got right after it and found a good source *on-line and ordered our seed garlic well enough in advance so as to be ready at planting time.
We have planted nearly double what we set in last year and will plant a couple dozen more before we are done. You can never have too much garlic.
Pictured above, Debe is setting in cloves into one of our raised beds. We have the varieties sectioned off and labeled with our signs for easy identification at harvest time.
*Buying seed garlic on-line: A quick search will bring up many sources of seed garlic. Be sure to locate one near you or at least one that shares your climate as much as possible. California may grow wonderful garlic but those varieties may not fare as well in New York for example.
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