#ThisWeekend: Plant Bulbs and Garlic

November is notorious for temps going up and down and teasing us with the final throes of Fall versus the full on winter months.

There are two things you should do this weekend if you haven't yet:

Plant Garlic

If you haven't planted any garlic yet, I suggest giving it a try. It is definitely one of the easier food garden plants to grow.

How to grow garlic

It is really pretty easy and we have a great podcast episode you can listen to --> Grow Garlic.

Here are the basics:

1. Head to one of the final Farmers Markets in your community of the year and grab some hardneck garlic.
2. Split the head up into cloves.
3. Toss the clove in the ground about 6" apart and ½" deep.

COOOLD

Garlic needs a winter cold period to create a head of garlic for next year. If it doesn't get a cold period, it will just grow as one weird giant clove. The cold gets it to grow in multiple cloves.

However, garlic does not need a cold period to sprout and will toss a new shoot up in the fall if you plant it too early and we have warm weather. So wait until your fingers will be frozen while planting. That is the time.

Hardneck

There are two types of garlic: hardback and softneck. Sometimes - been there / done that - garden stores will try and sneak soft neck garlic on the shelves. It doesn't work great here but some folks have had success. I haven't.

You'll know it is hardback garlic if the head of garlic has a stem sticking up from the center that is hard. Pretty sweet.

Bulbs

Bulbs are awesome. Many folks wig out this time of year because they bought bulbs and forget them on the garage shelf. Go ahead and plant them. They'll be good.

Here's a long post all about spring-flowering bulbs - Bulbs.

Have a great weekend!!!

Brad

PS: Make sure to check out the new Seasons Calendar I released this week. Would love to get your feedback on it.