Planted Garlic

I decided to give garlic a try this fall.  I won't know until next spring if I'm doing it correctly, but I'm glad I got it planted.  October 29th is pretty late for my area, but it was 50 degrees today and the ground is still workable.  As usual, I ordered my seed well in advance of the time it needed to be planted (the first two weeks of October, in my area), but procrastinated on getting it in the ground.  Better late than never!  

According to what I've read online (you can trust everything you read online, right?), hardneck varieties do better in northern climates.  I decided to experiment with one variety of hardneck and one variety of softneck. 

I bought my seed from an organic farm about 100 miles west of me.  I'm hoping that the garlic will grow well in my climate and I also like supporting farmers in my state. 

• Kilarny Red (Rocambole)  1/2 pound ordered; ended up with 39 cloves to plant (3 of which were very small and I didn't plant)
• Inchelium Red (Artichoke)  1/4 pound ordered;  ended up with 13 cloves to plant (all of good size)

I planted them about 3 inches deep, 6 inches apart in raised beds.  I did not water since it has rained almost every day for about two weeks.  I then covered the beds with some straw, but this is only to keep weeds down.  I doubt that step was even necessary since it is almost November, but better safe than sorry!   

The softneck variety only took half of a 4x8 garden bed. 

Now all I have to do is wait, wait, wait...  Hopefully we'll be enjoying homegrown garlic next summer!