Lane and I both love garlic. Seems our personal motto is you never have too much garlic. Its past time, almost, to get garlic planted in your garden. In some areas where the ground is already frozen it may be too late. The ideal time to plant garlic is September thru November. Garlic needs a cold ground to do its thing; multiply. When we decided to plant our own garlic which lane had never done before, I got on several web sites before I could find any seed garlic. It took several tries before I found a seed company that still had any planting garlic left for this season. We ordered three pounds of what they had left.

This is what they were able to send us; island artichoke which is a very large white bulb, red rezain which is a small purple bulb with red streaks, yekak which is small and purple, metich which is smaller still with purple and red stripes. The three pounds of garlic planted three and a half rows. The rows are about thirty feet long. When I ordered the guy I spoke with said that one pound would plant a thirty five foot row. He was right. I ordered the garlic on Saturday from a company in northwest Washington near the Canadian border and they arrived on Monday.

Garlic coming from that cold of an area should do well in our garden. When they arrived it was cold and rainy. Lane dreaded getting wet but knew she couldn’t wait to plant the garlic because we had almost waited too long to order them. So lane planted three and a half rows on November 24. Lane thinks it was just in time cause the weather has been nothing but bad ever since.

Here’s how to plant garlic if you need and want to plant it. Make a furrow two inches deep, break the heads apart into cloves and plant each clove six inches apart. Cover this with two inches of soil and mulch immediately with straw. That’s all you need to do until spring. The garlic does the rest.

Why plant so much garlic you may ask. Because its so very good for you. It can help lower blood pressure, high cholesterol and its also good for a cold. It makes great pickles not to mention being wonderful in cooking. We eat garlic in almost anything. If you haven’t thought about planting garlic then maybe you will next year. Lane hopes so.