Planting Elephant and Standard Garlic

We’ve had a few breaks in the weather so I took the opportunity to plant some of my garlic. I say ‘some of my garlic’ as I had more cloves to plant than I planned, so I’ve still to find a home for 25 cloves. Thanks to generous eBay suppliers.

Mulched with chopped leaves, this bed shouldn’t need much attention for the next 5 months when the garlic is growing.

Checking the Bed’s pH

Before getting around to planting, I wanted to check the bed’s soil pH, the acidity. The ideal pH for garlic is between 6.5 and 7.0. I’d limed the bed a couple of weeks back, so took a couple of samples and tested them

Whilst I was at it, took a couple of soil samples from the brassica tunnel as well. Brassicas like a pH in a similar range to garlic. All the samples tested with a pH approaching 7.0 so good to go.

Checking the pH Test

I was a bit surprised at the test result with the brassica bed, so to check the solution was actually reacting, added a drop of vinegar to acidify the solution. It immediately changed colour, indicating a very low (acid) pH, so the test liquid seems good.

Recycled Plastic Bed

The garlic bed is a 4 metre by 1 metre raised bed from British Recycled Plastics. They’re expensive but their lifespan is likely greater than mine!

Elephant Garlic

First to go in was the elephant garlic. Three rows, spaced at 20 cm in the rows. They took up more than half the bed, roughly 2.5 metres of the 4-metre length. I then stuck some stakes into the ground at the end of the row to mark where the bed changes from elephant to standard garlic.

Elephant garlic cloves are huge, but not a strong flavour. They work really well in stews and can be eaten as a side vegetable.

Standard Garlic

The remaining space for the Solent Wight standard garlic was split into four rows, with the plantings at 15 cm intervals. Elephant garlic, being bigger, needs extra space to standard garlic. Solent Wight is a softneck garlic. Fairly pungent and stores well. Properly cultivated, produces good-sized, usable cloves.

Planting Garlic

The planting holes were made with my leek dibber, which was made from a spade handle. It’s a lot faster to plant with than a trowel. Just pushing the cloves into the ground can damage the root plate. Even if it seems easy and the soil is soft, don’t just push them in. Once all the holes had a clove placed in, raked the soil over to fill in.

Mulching

Usually I’d have stopped after raking the soil, but this year I’m trialling mulching over the garlic. It was suggested to me that mulching with straw would be beneficial. First, the mulch would suppress weeds. The powerful garlic shoots, however, would just break on through the mulch, whereas the weed seedlings wouldn’t get away.

Secondly, the mulch will help stabilise the temperature under the soil. Garlic is very hardy and actually needs a chill spell to grow well. However, it doesn’t much like being really cold and then warm repeatedly. I’ve a feeling we could have a very cold winter this year. We’re certainly due one.

I don’t have any straw though. I suppose I could source and buy a bale but much prefer to use what I have. In this case, chopped leaves. The leaves are falling quickly now and all over the grass, so I quickly ran the rotary mower over. The grass hasn’t grown much, so not much to cut, but the small amount in with the leaves will help stabilise the leaves when the wind’s trying to blow them off the bed.

The soil in the raised bed is about 5 to 7.5 centimetres below the edge of the bed. A perfect guide for the mulch depth. And the grass looks better for a trim and being cleared of fallen leaves.

Cultivation

All I need to do now is keep my eye on the bed. Any weeds that do pop up can be easily pulled. Once the garlic shoots appear, a little boost of fertiliser should help, followed by a goodly dose of potash at the start of April as per Stewart Jones’ plan. See: Master Garlic Grower Shares How he Grows Garlic

But where to stick another 25 cloves?