October is the month to plant garlic and today is another beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest.

killarney red

What an accomplishment – getting the garlic ordered – pulled apart (called popping) and then planted. Preparing the garden bed is no small task either. I’ve got 186 cloves planted which ideally (with no moles, cats or bad weather) will be the same number of bulbs harvested in July. Purple Italian, Premium Northern White, Killarney Red (I wanted Spanish Roja) and Silverwhite are the types that spoke to me in the catalog. Organic. The Premium cloves were HUGE. Garlic seems pricey to me in comparison to other seeds and starts ($16/pound plus shipping). I have yet to find a place to buy them that I could really recommend. You are supposed to plant only the larger cloves to get larger bulbs. Makes sense. With the little pieces left over, you can either cook them (duh) or plant them in a little spot in the garden and use them in the spring as little garlicky additions to your food. Yum.

Now that it is all planted, I’m ready for the rains. I know that harvesting in July will arrive quickly enough. Hopefully, the bulbs next year will be larger than they were from our hot, dry summer this year. It is the mystery that I enjoy about the garden.

bags of garlic cloves

garden tags

freshly planted garlic bed