It's getting cooler now, we've had a few frosts and this morning we even got some snow flurries. While that doesn't make me happy, it does mean it's time to cover my garlic. On this bed i used a type of organic straw that's been treated so there are no weed seeds. Garlic does not like to compete with weeds, so it's good to use a mulch that doesn't have any in them. Leaves are acceptable as well as pine needles. Both leaves (especially oak leaves) and pine needles are more acidic, but only using it as a mulch and not digging it into the soil, will not affect the pH of your soil.

If you're planting hard neck garlic then you'll want a good 4" to 6" of mulch on top of them. For soft neck garlic you'll want 8" to 12". I'm planting both kinds this year, so obviously i want to keep track of what garlic i planted where. Next post i'll show you how I do that. This bed holds german red and music garlic, both hard necks.

The reason you want to mulch over your garlic isn't because it isn't winter hardy, at least with the hard necks. The reason is that in the fall and in the spring, we get cold temperatures, then warm, then cold again.. This can make the garlic bulbs heave out of the ground, not something you want. By mulching them over, it regulates the temperature better and they won't do that. For soft necks you're also protecting them from extreme cold, which they don't like, and which is why you use so much more mulch on top of them.

So why would I plant a soft neck when they're so much more trouble? They also have a higher failure rate than my other garlic varieties. The answer is, they are the longest storing types of garlic. I'm planting a kind that's supposed to be a little more winter hardy than some others. It's called susanville, and i'll let you know how it did next year.

For now, all my garlic is planted and protected, now all i have to do is wait....

We've been having some really nice warm autumn weather lately. A bit too warm to put straw down on my garlic. You don't want to mulch over your garlic while it's warm out, the reason is pest insects can make nice cozy winter homes in the mulch and you don't want to give them a head start next spring. So, I'll have to wait to mulch over my garlic. On the up side though, i'm still harvesting lots of stuff from the garden. Shown here from left to right; a fall crop of romaine lettuce, kale, above the kale are purple brussels sprouts (we have had a frost so they'll be sweet) a couple of nice green tomatoes and a 1/2 red sweet pepper. The reason you want to wait till a frost to harvest the brussels sprouts, is as i said, because they'll get sweeter, same for collards. The garden my collards are in though, haven't gotten a frost yet so i haven't started harvesting them quite yet.