Non-gardening types are little surprised when you tell them, around here, garlic is planted in November. It is generally accepted that spring is the time of planting. But think of bulbs, they like to be planted in the fall – daffodils, tulips – and garlic is nothing if not a bulb segmented into cloves, and on top of the hardneck varieties grow the bulbils, or miniature bulbs. Garlic needs nine months to achieve its full potential. The roots grow throughout the winter months and in March up they come, ready for sun.

Our garlic suffered some serious setbacks this year. Due to events beyond my control, I needed to plant the garlic in completely new fields. The fields were hayfield and to convert a hayfield to a vegetable field, depending upon the vegetables, takes time, takes adjustments. And I had no time. A plowed field of hay is called sod, planting in sod. Covid prevented soil testing: looking for minerals and pH and organic matter. So, in that regard I was blind. Trying to reduce my risks, I plowed two separate and distinct areas of the hill across from my driveway; one hilltop soil, and the other lower, wetter. Well, it was soon apparent the low field was simply too much wetter. Plants can drown. Trees can drown, garlic can drown, squash can drown. Roots search for moisture, for sure, but they need oxygen to breathe. Roots take oxygen from air pores, little pockets of air and water. If a soil remains saturated for a length of time, the roots cannot get the oxygen they need. It’s curtains.

Yet we planted more garlic than ever. What survived the nine months came out pretty good. What did not survive simply disappeared. More things can get to garlic than you might think. There’s onion white rot, fusarium, botrytis rot, and penicillium decay. And something new coming our way – the allium leaf miner, a small fly that drills holes in the leaves, deposits eggs, and when they hatch, the larvae travel down to the bulb and start chewing from the inside. So, what happened here to those that grew but stopped and died? I’m not enough of an expert.

The garlic has been harvested. It is for sale right now, green. We have hung it in the woodshed and the barns with fans on them to cure them, harden the bulbs, dry them out. Our seed garlic looks tremendous (see photo), but we will not plant as much this year. What makes a garlic bulb a seed bulb? It’s big. We keep your biggest to replant. We look for strong roots with no blemish.

Rotation is the name of the game, but if I rotate, I will be planting in sod again as the rest of the field is still in hay and has just had the hay baled. So I am going against all the rules and planting in the same, higher field. I have it tilled up and will rototill it once more and plant it, immediately, in yellow mustard, a brassica. This plant is a powerful fumigant. Plant the mustard. Allow it to grow to flower, but before the flowers go to seed, brush hog the field into a green manure. As soon as the mustard is chopped, till it into the ground, and then compress the ground with a compactor. This crushed and compressed brassica acts as a soil cleanser, suppressing fungi and other pathogens. I think I will have just enough time.

While tilling the field after removing the garlic I was surrounded by dozens of swallows, barn swallows, tree swallows, and the like, feeding on the insects the machine clang and clattered into the air. It was a feast. I was reminded of my father who loved nothing more than being on a tractor on a summer afternoon surrounded by hungry swallows beefing up for their coming migration. They leave in couple weeks.

I gotta get going. The fields are calling my name.