How much do you love garlic? I love it in so many ways. Roasted whole. Sizzling in olive oil alongside onion. Rubbed on toasted sourdough. As the background kick in a delicious pesto. Garlic is so great. 

I grew it for the first time last year and learnt a lot. I discovered, as I waited and waited for the garlic scapes to appear, that there is a difference between hardneck and other varieties like the organic Australian purple I planted. No scapes from the Australian purple.

It's pretty hardy, the old garlic. I worried it was too dry because I didn't mulch (I wanted to see the weeds and any resident bugs this first time around.) I worried it would rot in the ground when we had days and days of rain. I peered at it as it got a nodule in the stalk and wondered what the heck that meant. But it was all good. And I harvested a heap of garlic from one large raised bed. Enough to plant out in the market garden this year. 

We split it all apart this weekend and I kept some for eating until this next crop is ready. How much garlic do we need for six months or so? More than I've got left I bet! I'm planting in a raised bed in the kitchen garden as well, not that I don't have faith in Adam's vegie growing prowess, but the kitchen garden is mine, and I can peer at it and mulch or not mulch and harvest when I run out, even if they're just fledglings. 

Grow, garlic, grow!

xxx

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