Garlic and Potatoes

An escape for myself and Tom from the frustrations of computers and technology, we went off to plant garlic and dig potatoes. One day early for garlic but I think will will get away with it, it was the first day of no rain but sun for the first time in weeks. Tom hadn’t been to the plot for sometime but was enthusiastic when he saw the changes since the end of summer, he started to plan what could go in some of the bare beds for next year.

Plant on the shortest day and lift on the longest, it worked last year for our garlic and so we will repeat it again. This time 20 bulbs instead of 10, it was a harvest that we used every bit off last time. We put them in, covered with netting and hopefully we might see something in the coming weeks.

The other task while we were there in the sun was to clear some of the old beds and mulch with rotted manure. The marigolds had been a great success and had last many months in flower. Tom rightly suggested we should sow a lot more next year and planted around the edge of the plot. While planting the garlic I was impressed how well the soil was, we had spent ages digging, removing stones, mulching and over the months not many weeds and had been left with soil that feels really good and easy to work with. The beds just cleared felt nothing like that and full of stones. We didn’t have hours but did have time to fork over, remove stones, remove weeds, cover in cardboard and mulch over. In other places I haven’t done this, I’ve just covered and mulched.

We planted potatoes the other month with the idea to dig them up for our Christmas lunch. Disappointingly the plants died off about a month earlier than expected, which was strange as our rogue potato plants went on a lot longer. I wasn’t expecting a great deal for our digging up today, and we didn’t get a great deal, but more than enough for at least three or four Christmas lunches which then must surely be a success.

The rare sunny day had turned into a cold rainy day, we called it a day and returned home with potatoes and rather muddy. We will return before Christmas lunch fetch some more veg.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *