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Garlic - Easy In The Garden
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What Do I Plant?
You plant the same garlic clove that you chop up for your dinner. You can choose from a couple of varieties in the seed catalogues or garden centres or you can just buy some at the grocery store and it will grow just fine. There are two basic types. Hard neck, the most common in the grocery store. The soft neck types are most often seen at farmer’s markets etc. where their soft neck allows them to be braided into strings. They taste about the same but the soft neck types seem to store a little longer. You just take the whole garlic bunch that you buy and break it into the individual cloves as if you were going to cook with it.
How And When Do I Plant It?
In the autumn when you are planting the rest of your bulbs such as tulips, put these cloves about 10cm deep into the ground. They are very interesting and decorative plants so I plant them in amongst the Daylilies and Iris and wherever I find a small space. Having planted them, you are finished with the process until late next summer. By late July or early August next year, you simply dig up the long green stalk and magically
there is a whole ‘thingee’ of garlic on the end of it. Cut the stalk off and let it dry in the sun for a while and you are ready to cook. Put one of the cloves back in the ground for next year’s crop and the cycle repeats.
Other Benefits!
The tall flower stalk, which is called a scape, is both interesting and useful. It grows curled and twisted which makes it an interesting addition to midsummer flower arrangements. It is also quite edible. When they are relatively young and small they can be added to stir fries or chopped up into pesto-like spreads. Experiment with them. It’s fun and a great adventure.
If I was only allowed one spice/herb, it would have to be Garlic. Life without it would be so dull.
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