Long Island Gardening Community Resource

Today was garlic planting day; Four rows, 3 inches apart, each garlic 3 inches apart.  The bed had been prepped a few weeks ago with compost amendments and old mulch (from the tomatoes) mixed in to the soil.  I set up two strings lengthwise to to the bed and marked with marker every 3 inches.  Then set up a string going across the other strings so it can slide down the line and lay in a straight line to show where the garlic needs to be planted (in order to maintain straight lines for weeding purposes later).  The strings worked out for the first two garlics and finally I said forget about it.  I’ll wing it.

Each garlic clove (some of which I purchased from an upstate New York farmer and some from Seeds of Change) was pressed into the ground as far as I could push.  I had to run my spade through each row to loosen the soil up a bit.  I was planning on planting 100 garlics.  I planted 99.  25 in each row except for one.  Finally, I I took half a bale of straw and spread it on the garlic to give it a nice warm bed until  spring comes around.