you know it's the end of an era when the tomato plants come out
it's a decisive end of season event
but there is no going to waste of course green tomatoes can be made into chutney and sauces and
if you hang them up upside down in the shed well some of these will still ripen
but the end of one season isn't the end of anything it's actually the beginning
today i'm going to plant one of my absolute favorite backyard crops and of course
it is the queen of the alliums it's garlic hey squiddy and this is really one of the best things
you can grow yourself for 10 or 15 bucks of good quality bulbs you can grow hundreds of dollars
worth of your own garlic i reckon you should all get some in the ground come on you two
anytime from about mid-march to the end of may is perfect for planting garlic in lots of
southern australia and you know old wisdom told us that you planted on the shortest day of the
year in june and harvest on the longest but that is northern hemisphere advice
earlier it's better and you'll get a much better crop prepping a bed for garlic is
pretty textbook you want well-drained soil so of course you need lots of organic matter i'm
adding a good layer of compost as a top dressing and there are a few important
tips you need to keep the bed weed free because alliums are wusses when it comes to competition
at this point though it is important to avoid using any fresh manures or really high nitrogen
fertilizers because they can cause those bulbs to rot in the ground before they take off
and also they encourage really sappy growth which the aphids love
of course whenever you're talking about nutrition that's when you also talk about the ph of the soil
i've tested the soil and it's neutral which is perfect but anything below about six and
a half i'd add a dusting of dolomite lime this is sweeten the soil and ensure they
have access to the nutrients they need now it's time to plant break the bulbs apart and pick out
the biggest and happiest looking cloves chuck out anything that is bruised damaged or rotten
it's important not to do this too early so do it just before you're ready to plant and i'm
taking a bit of care with it making sure that as i snap them off they've all got a little piece
of this base plate attached to the bottom because it's where the roots come from and these smaller
bulbs they're not going to go to waste i'm going to show you a little trick to use them up later
now you can whack them straight into the ground but i found it's really effective
to soak them in water overnight it gets them growing very quickly you can see those roots
are already starting to emerge there's a little bit of fish emulsion in here too
and that means that those plants are out of the ground much more quickly
which means there's a much smaller chance that any of them will rot
i'm making some planting holes about a hand span apart which is about 15 centimeters and they want
to finish up a couple of centimeters deep i'm planting three different varieties here which
i've sourced from other gardeners i've been growing some of them for years and i've got
a white variety it's a soft neck and then two purple varieties which are known as hardnecks
now they produce a fantastic long flower spike which persists that's the hard neck when they
dry them out so before you get to harvest the garlic bulbs you get to harvest the flowers and
eat them too but there are literally around 100 varieties of garlic to choose from in australia
and my best advice is to look local check out your local farmers market seed savers community gardens
and of course a local nursery now you might be tempted if the garlic he bought at supermarket
shoots at the back of the cupboard to put it in the ground but i wouldn't recommend it if it's
been imported it will have been treated with chemicals and that can also inhibit its growth
water them in but don't overdo it you don't want to rot the bulbs
these should be up and running in a couple of weeks but when they're ready to harvest is
really the million dollar question different varieties will behave in slightly different
ways and indicate that they're ready one of the best tricks i've learned is actually to sacrifice
one dig it up if you think they're ready then you just lift a bulb out cut it up and see if
those cloves are really well defined if they are wait for a dry morning before you lift them up
and hang them in the shed to cure oh yeah there was that other thing i was going to show you
now i did say that i had a use for these little cloves they're not great for planting in the
garden they're unlikely to be big healthy robust plants but they're fantastic for growing in a pot
you can jam as many as you like in here because you're not growing these
to form nice big fat bulbs you're actually growing them for the foliage and you can
harvest that right through the cooler months while your main event is developing away in the garden
i think that really this is all you've got room for well
it's actually a great way to get a bit of garlic flavour in the garden why don't you give it a go
you