In probably a first for me, I’ve got my autumn sowing garlic in before the end of October. I believe the benefits of sharing the plot with others is already paying off. Recently joined by friend Manishta, and new to lotties Ilana & Will, we had a bit of a working party a couple of weekends ago. Gosh we got a lot done! This included clearing one of the beds of weeds etc so it would be ready for planting the garlic.
So when I went down to the plot today, I didn’t have to do any preparation, I was able to immediately start planting!
I always space the garlic out first before planting. This allows me to see what fits in and adjust the space if needed. Of course garlic needs a certain amount of spacing. I must admit I don’t tend to follow the spacing rules per se. I have so many varieties that are of different sizes, I seem to be able to get away with planting a bit closer.
I also use the zig-zag pattern (left) to sow, as this enables you to fit in a bit more into the space than you might otherwise.
Once spaced out, I then put them in the ground, not too deep, just deep enough to have about an inch of soil on top of them once covered.
Then cover with 3-4 inches of soil (or 1-2 if on heavy soil)
By the time you finish, all you have is a neat bed with some labels one size and sticks in the middle, viz:
The sticks mark out the boundaries of the different varieties. I could use string to demarcate them more strongly, but this has always worked in the past so I don’t tend to bother. But might be useful if you are new to growing garlic and making sure you know where each variety is.
Now they are all bedded in and apart from weeding, and watering next year in spring/summer, that’s it for the garlic until I dig up the wonderful bulbs next July/August.
Garlic is such an easy crop to grow. You can plant autumn sowing garlic throughout autumn. I’ll confess that some years I’ve been quite late, into late December, and still got a great crop. So if you haven’t tried growing garlic, I highly recommend it. You can even grow it amongst your flower beds or in pots (about 3 cloves to a 10 litre pot). For not much effort you generally get great results.
it's good to zig-zag, more people should do this; as you say, you can squeeze more in, especially with these wonderful raised beds. There are so many myths in veg growing – particularly with regard to spacing. One of the raised-bed ludites approached me the other week, as we were planting our onions and garlic. 'They're too close' said he, they weren't, we zig-zag too and we dont have this nonsense of paths between every row, as the traditional allotments do.
I think that you can get about 30% more in?
Your beds look fabulous.
If I planted straight rows, I'd probably only get 8 cloves in, but zig zagging gets 10-12, depending on clove/garlic size.
I don't understand why people still grow veg in that straight line with paths inbetween way. It's inefficient and bad for the soil with all that walking on it. Raised beds are go!