I am very very new to this gardening game. This is my first year attempting an actual food producing garden and I am realizing how very little actual down time of gardening there is. Already I am jotting down lists of what I want to plant next year and the hard lessons I want to learn from.

(Side Note: I think I enjoy the planning/dreaming process way more than the actual daily grind of gardening….)

I came very close to missing my garlic planting window.

To be honest – I’m not exactly sure I haven’t. If we can get through the next 2-4 weeks without the ground freezing solid I will be okay. I planted it on November 15th, which is cutting it pretty close. It won’t be ready until next summer but it needs to go into the ground now.

I ordered my garlic from Filaree Garlic Farm. They are great, and their catalog is bursting with information on what types of garlic you should get. However, I forgot to order earlier and waited until the last minute. So, I just got whatever they had left, which I am not mad about.

As always nothing goes right the first time……

Dear Future Self,

1. Order your garlic earlier. (They’ll send it when it gets close to time to plant)
2. Order more garlic.
3. Order garlic that has a long shelf life.
4. Please record where you planted it, DO NOT rely on your memory.
   

Quickly, I ran into the problem of not knowing where to plant it. You plant garlic in the late Fall (for my zone) and you forget about it until around June or July.

The good thing about being in a hurry is that you don’t have time to over think. I picked a spot by the side of the house where it wasn’t in the way of anything, dug it up, and put some random bricks around it to make sure no one decided to mow over it.

It’s not pretty – but I don’t think the garlic and shallots cares too much.

Next, I just followed the instructions that Filaree sends with the garlic and shallots. I separated them into individual cloves, made a mess, planted them root end down 2″ deep, and then admittedly probably planted them too close together.

It hurts my soul to simply follow all of the directions. It’s a weird character flaw I have.

I’ll water it every day for the next week or so, then pray for the best.

At first I marked where the garlic and shallots are with the bags they came in. I couldn’t think of anything that would stay throughout the entire winter. So, I decided to just write down where I planted it in my planner. In the spring I’ll probably make some type of sign, but until then I have it down on paper.

There is no vanity to this post. Just ramblings from someone with a new gardening obsession. I actually am thinking of buying some organic garlic from the grocery store and trying out how well they grow.

So if you are thinking about planting garlic I really recommend it. I also recommend not waiting until the last minute to avoid stress, but where’s the fun in that?

Thanks for taking time out of your day to hang out here!

Where I got my organic garlic from and to learn more about garlic check out: Filaree Garlic Farm