Thursday, November 11, 2010

alliums everywhere

A few weeks back I ordered some German purple neck garlic bulbils for something different to try here on the homestead. I have always planted the bulbils from our elephant garlic but never tried growing actual garlic using the same method. I had read good things about the type and found them at a very good price so ordered us 50 babies and received 80. While waiting for that order to be delivered I found some walking onion starts at a very good price and also sent for an order of them. I have wanted the walking onions for years but have seen very few places that sell them. While waiting for the delivery of the onions, I discovered the small patch of garlic that the manthing had weed whacked this summer had shoots emerging from the ground. I thought I would leave them there and let them grow until next season and have a good harvest but then saw that each bulb had sent shoots from each clove so I was going to have deformed blobs and that was ok with me because we dont discriminate against ugly veggies here. In the meantime, my orders had arrived and were sitting here on my desk waiting patiently to be planted when we had the cold snap last week and I decided that the new babies had to wait until it warmed back up for a spell. It is Ga after all and that is just how our weather is. As the weather warmed, the bees got madder and I managed to get my self stung on the second nice day we had. Two days later, while I was feeling human again I was also a bit behind on school work so dedicated yesterday to getting it caught up. Unfortunately the sun came up and it became a picture perfect day so I had to get out and enjoy the 75 degrees and sunny with a light breeze.
I intended to spend an hour or two, no more on gardens and other outside work when I spotted the garlic bed and thought to myself, what a waste. I grabbed the shovel and started digging them up on by one, all forty two clumps of plants until they were all out of the ground and divided into 204 individual plantlings. I then found myself in a predicament of having near 300 plants or seeds that absolutely had to go in the ground very soon because of weather patterns with no idea where I was going to put that many plants at once. My two hours worked in to three then four and in total near 7 hours of time spent. So much for getting the school work for the week caught up but all my little greenies are now in the ground to enjoy the next few weeks of crazy weather patterns until winter settles in. Thank goodness alliums are early growing plants come spring so I will be able to keep track of all the places I planted them in.
This bed is completely planted in walking onions and garlic, even between all the leafy greens.
Some of the garlic plants that I separated and planted in other areas where I transplanted out some perennial herbs. There are also two other beds that I put elephant garlic and garlic in as well. We should have no shortage of garlic next year.

2 comments:

  1. Hi there, I have read your blog for a while now and really enjoy the useful info! Had a question about your neck of the woods. I live in Central Oregon and have never been east of Montana. You mentioned bees, I am deathly allergeic to yellow jackets and wasps, and would like to know when would it be a good time to visit the South/East and not have to worry about the little beasties? I would particularly like to visit in the spring time. Any suggestions?
    Jen

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  2. late winter or very early spring is best. depending on the are early spring varies.. both manthing and i have allergies so we have to be very careful although this was only the second time for me this year ... usually i get four or five stings easily a year but i spend near all my time outside and they really like me..he aint been stung in several years though..

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