Full Circle Garlic

One of my gardening ambitions is to become self sufficient in as many areas of growing as I can, closing the loop to reduce the amount of inputs my garden needs. This year I grew peas and many different flowers from my own saved seed, and this week I have added garlic to the list. I bought in my garlic last Autumn and after a very good crop, I have replanted my own cloves for next year's harvest. I hope this marks the end of buying in seed garlic.

Here is a photo diary of my garlic crop to show you the entire journey over one year.

October 2020 I purchased seed garlic for planting.

And plant it I did. About 50+ cloves, across a few different beds.

I covered the cloves with soil, straw and seaweed.

And up it came.

Throughout the season, I gradually added compost and seaweed for nutrients but also as mulch as the bulbs can begin to push up through the soil.

Then I started harvesting it from the end of June to August.

And drying it.

November 2021 and I still have lots of perfectly preserved dry garlic in the garage and I have replanted some of it for next year's harvest.

And that's one main crop set in motion for next year.  Autumn and winter are my favourite gardening months which makes garlic one of my top choice vegetables for growing at home. You can plant garlic NOW so get going if it's something you'd like to do.

My Garden: 27th March 2016 (Easter Sunday)

I haven't anything posted in months but I have been working in the garden.  I always try to get as much in the ground in autumn as possible so I have something to be tinkering with over winter. From November to March, I've been mulling over my broad beans which were getting leggy in the cold frame (it's been milder than usual), gazing at my garlic (three varieties which I planted in containers and a raised bed) and picking at my purple sprouting broccoli.

I ended up planting out the broad beans in January after the extreme wet weather had eased off a while. It was a risk at that time of year but they are looking fairly healthy, if a bit twisted.  Even though the variety is dwarf, they need some support so I've built simple tepees with bamboo and twine.

We have been eating purple sprouting brocolli (PSB) with a few weeks now. The crop isn't as good as last year but I think that was down to me being late moving them from pot to ground. Apart from one towering plant, the rest are on the small side. I think they also benefit from a bit of frost and the winter was quite mild and wet. As you get three cuts per plant, there is still plenty fruit to come. I think PSB is the staple plant to include in your garden plan and I'll be sowing my seeds for next years crop very soon. Picture below shows some that I'll need to cut very soon as it looks like it is starting to go to flower.

Back in October I planted some garlic (softneck variety Solent Wight) in window boxes and this will be eaten young and green. This week I sprinkled some spring onion seeds on the surface and watered in so hopefully they will happily grow around the garlic.

My main garlic crop has been in a raised bed since October, a mix of Solent (single layer on the left) and Lautrec (hardneck). The stem of the Solent is noticeably thicker than the plants of the same variety that are in the window boxes. It's interesting to see the differences in results between various settings. I'm not 100% but I may have added a layer of seaweed to this bed back in the autumn, which would have given the plants a boost. Again I have sprinkled some spring onion seeds on the surface this week.  The third variety of garlic, early Purple Wright, is in other beds around the garden.

The first direct sown seeds of spring were planted yesterday - two rows of beetroot, one Bolthardy and the other Chiogga. In my efforts to mix vegetables and flowers, nasturtiums will go in between the rows. This bed got a nice treatment of a thick layer of seaweed in Autumn plus some garden compost and the soil is looking really well. 

Dormant flowers are starting to revive and I'm hoping for some surprises. Below is some 'Braunherz' which will spread its luscious thick purple leaves to give ground cover. 

Last year I planted lupins from seed and got bountiful foliage but being a biannual, no flowers. This year the foliage is coming back beautifully and hopefully come May I'll have towering explosions of colourful flower. The seeds were mixed so what emerges will be a surprise. I can take basal cuttings now so hopefully I'll be able to successfully multiply the plants, and give some for gifts.

My pansies were ravished by slugs this year so I was delighted to get a photo of this perfect flower before she is nibbled away to nothing.

Pea seeds are swelling and starting to sprout. Yesterday I planted marigolds in the remaining cells. The marigolds, which attract the beneficial hoverfly, will be inter-planted among the vegetables.

And to finish, a picture of my Bowles's Mauve wallflowers which have just started their flowering season but have always had a bloom or two at all times over winter. It's a perrenial plant that has a tendency to get leggy so after the flower stalk finishes blooming, cut it back down at the base. This is another plant that I'll be taking cuttings of soon. It makes a wonderful fragranced cut flower.

Till next time.

My Garden: 5th November 2015

I love gardening and writing about gardening this time of year. The jobs are bigger - digging and covering beds, clearing leaves, tidying away spent plants - and the dreams are bigger. It's a time for reading books and making plans for next year, thinking of your regrets and failures in the year gone by and about how to emulate your successes. I have lists written on scraps of paper all around the house and open books left on every seat. Plus the autumnal colours of my blog design become more relevant.




My most recent read was Alys Fowler's The Edible Garden which I picked up in Carrigaline library. I had taken my two year old out for an afternoon walk and when he unexpectedly fell asleep, I decided to park up in the library to relax and enjoy a read while he slept. I couldn't have chosen a more beautiful book for leafing through. Her garden is built on the premise of polyculture which is the mingling of plants for different purposes together, rather thank having, say, a vegetable plot and separate flower beds. It's something we hear of in companion planting tips - planting basil among the tomatoes to improve flavours, sweet peas with your brassicas to add nitrogen to the soil - but so far my efforts have manifested in tiny, awkwardly placed flowers at the edge of my vegetable beds. Looking at the photos in Alys's book, I realised that I have been doing it all wrong. Her sumptuous Birmingham garden is fabulously chaotic with fruit, flowers and vegetables of different colours, heights and textures intermingled with each other leaving virtually no uncovered ground.




So I've started trying to patch things together. I am slowly filling a patch of ground that was uncovered after we cleared a hugely overgrown bush and for the first time I am thinking about the overall aesthetic rather than the individual plant. In the background of the photo below you can see wallflowers on the left, Euyonomous in the middle and on the right what I think is Lonicera nitida or box honeysuckle. In the middle is purple sprouting broccoli and onions with pansies in the foreground. Hopefully when the plants fill out, and with more added, it will create a nice effect.

In other areas of the garden, I have dug a new bed by removing the top sod, digging the ground underneath and covering with the turned sod, so the grass side faces down. Over that I placed a layer of cardboard, which I have covered with loads of compost from the heap in the garden Finally, a layer of seaweed, which was washed up on a local beach after bad weather, has been spread over the top. Hopefully by the time the planting out season comes April/May, the bed will have good soil structure and be filled with nutrients. At the edge of the bed are Brussels sprouts, broccoli and broad beans:





This year I ordered my garlic from quickcrop.ie again, which I've found to be the best stockists for choice, quality and speed of delivery. I even got two extra heads of garlic in my order! I am trying Lautrec (hardneck variety), early Purple Wight and Iberian Wight I've planted my garlic in a raised bed but I've also put some in modules in a cold frame for planting out in the spring, as I've read that this can have good results. I'm hoping I've made a good choice as the hardneck and the early won't store too well. I plan on eating the early fresh so I can pick as needed, then using the hardneck and finally the Iberian, which I have planted more of as they will store well. The heads under cover have started to poke out:





In my front garden I am tidying up the old flowers. I've saved the seed from my Crocosmia Lucifer, for planting later:

My rose bush has flowered for the second time this year, the first time it has ever flowered twice, but with the Autumn winds, the flower fell apart quickly after blooming. Not to waste them, I gathered them up and placed in a jar of water. It looks very pretty on my kitchen window sill and smells gorgeous.





That's about the main news from my garden. My next big job is to attack an overgrown raised bed frame so I can move it out from the wall to the middle of the garden making it easier to maintain as I will be able to access all four sides and won't have to deal with thick coarse grass growing up between the fence and the wooden frame. It's a lovely big frame and I can't wait to put it to use.

Planting Garlic in Ireland

Garlic is a crop that any vegetable gardener should be growing. It is planted (ideally) in October - December when there is nothing much else going on in the garden. It is low maintenance and stores well. Garlic is a staple in most kitchens and can be eaten young and fresh or mature and dried. It looks lovely hanging in your kitchen too - see above!

The first year I grew garlic I planted supermarket bought cloves, which produced small bulbs which I ate fresh. I now realise that this is not recommended as the garlic may be treated to prevent sprouting. Since then, I've purchased seed garlic. I seem to have trouble finding it at local garden centres so I buy online from Irish sellers.

Purchased from quickcrop.ie.

General Information

You can get two main types of garlic - soft neck and hard neck. Soft varieties are better for storage, hard will need to be used more quickly but are said to have a superior flavour. Hard neck will also send up edible flower stalks called garlic scapes that should be removed to help the main bulb to swell. The scapes can be used in various ways including pestos, soups and stir fries.

Planting Guidelines

Plant in autumn for a June/July harvest or in spring for a later crop(dependant on the variety). Some varieties are "earlies" so plant and harvest these first. If the ground is too wet and cold, the cloves can rot so planting in modules in autumn/winter for planting out in spring is an option.

Break the bulb into cloves and plant each one separately.

Prefers a light, free-draining soil in full sun. Certain varieties have a tendency to push up through the soil so plant these a few inches deep.

Harvesting and Preserving Garlic

Garlic should be lifted when the stem starts to turn yellow. It is best to lift early than too late as the bulbs can shatter and may start sprouting.

Handle carefully as it can bruise, which leads to rot in storage.

Allow to completely dry in the sun before storing. A good rule of thumb is to wait until the outer skins are totally dry and will slip off easily - usually two-three weeks. If there is a risk of rain, hang under cover - an unheated greenhouse will suffice.

Store hanging in bunches or plaited. Before plaiting, moisten the stem to make it more flexible.

If storing in wooden boxes, cut the stem down to 2 inches.


Here is one of my bulbs which has shattered - still perfectly edible but gone beyond its best:

I'll hang it anywhere I can: