When do we Start?

It is hard to define a new season on the vegetable patch. Ideally there are always times when something is growing or needs harvesting or clearing. For me, the start of the new season is always kicked off by the planting of my autumn garlic, shallots and onions. There are still plenty of things growing and indeed plenty of plants that have just been planted out recently, broccoli, Chinese leaves, cabbages etc but all of them will always play second fiddle to my allium family! Spring (green) garlic is one of the reasons I wanted a vegetable patch in the first place. It is rarely in the grocery store but it is truly a garlic lover's treat. Roasted whole with a bit of nice extra virgin olive oil and sea salt and crushed onto some rustic bread or mixed, finely chopped with chilies, into pasta or crammed into some little slits, with some rosemary, into a leg of lamb (sorry but I cant seem to stop this sentence!) ....

I planted my first cloves of garlic this year on the 20th of September. I felt like this was a little bit early but a few reliable sources advised that it is best to get it in the ground and established before the really wet weather sets it giving it a great potential to rot in the ground. I chose a variety call Early Purple Wight. It had very large cloves in a nice big bulb. This year I will also make my first attempt at planting a crop from cloves from last years crop. I had a very nice batch of garlic (see photo) from last year and so I will begrudgingly set aside two of the bigger bulbs for planting. If anyone has a better method for plaiting garlic point me to it! The best I could manage was plaiting three stems together then plaiting three plaits together. It all got rather bulky and so I just stuck it on a nail in the wall right above my chopping board where it is within very easy reach! I can already predict that my winter's supply of garlic will last me until about the end of October. This year I am not going to be shy about quantity. I will probably add to my autumn planting with another planting mid February. This should also allow me to indulge in taking lots of spring garlic (May/June) while still having plenty for July main harvest.