Hello, I'm Liz Zorab and this is Byther Farm and this morning I'm planting garlic.
I've ordered two different types Germidour and Messidrome and I'm just
getting these into the ground. They probably should have gone in in November,
but it's fine they all go in now and hopefully
we'll have a really nice garlic crop the next year.
So this morning I've been out
and cleared the weeds from this bed by pulling them out at the roots, throwing
them over the fence for the ducks and they've really appreciated it,
And I've also been through and dibbled the ground a little bit with my fingers
because there are quite a lot of holes in it, where voles, and possibly moles,
but there's been activity underground so I've been trying to get rid of some of
those little runways in in the soil. I'm still finding
bits, that looks like it's a dock of some sort, And then I've marked out where
I want my rows to go using a stick at each end and then using a dibber with
string on it attached on each end, I've marked my line, Now I've just got to give a
little shout-out to Erica to say thank you for my dibber, which she
gave to me a month or so ago, hadn't used that until now. So I'm going start
getting this garlic in, I have put in a couple of rows over there and now I'm
getting this done. So you buy garlic by the bulb and then you just break it open
and get the individual pieces. little cloves, and you plant those with the root
end down and the pointy end up.
I know quite a lot of people like to plant their onions and their garlic just
below the surface and I like to plant it a little bit deeper than that's because
we have a very active bird population here, who are very keen on pulling out
onions and garlic when you've planted them. So I'm going to plant them a little
bit deeper and then hopefully by the time they've actually sent a
shoot up above soil leve,l their roots will have taken really good hold
and prevent the birds from pulling them out.
So I'm probably planting the base of
it about four inches deep so the top of it is covered by a couple of inches of soil
I've got to say I do wish I could actually plant these as quickly as the sped up video shows!
So I'm spacing them approximately six inches apart just
because I have the space so they could go as little as four inches and if
you're using an intensive method of growing I think I probably go in much
closer than that.
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At this end of the bed I have a small trial going on.
I have six different types of garlic I've just planted three or four
cloves of each the six different types in rows across here and what I want to
do is see how the different varieties compare to each other. Not only that but
the same six varieties from the same bulbs are being planted by Huw up in Mid Wales.
This garden is almost at sea level, not quite but almost, whereas Huw's is much
higher up and we're going to see whether the different altitudes and therefore
the different climates also have a bearing on the production and the yields
and the quality of the garlic that we managed to grow.
So the six varieties
that we're testing are Carcassonne, Early Purple, Germidour, Messidrome,
Provence and Solent White.
So we've got a selection of different types of garlics there.
I'm really, really interested to see how they grow, so over the next few
months I will continue filming we'll watch their progress and next year we'll
do comparison of the harvests.
I planted the first three rows using my hands
but to be honest, I am so cold and the ground is so cold and I'm now going to
use the help of a small fork just to make some holes because it was
slow going and I had to keep stopping for cups of tea and hopefully this way
I'll get them in nice and quickly.
Now I'm sure you can't help but notice this is not a garlic, that is an
Asturian tree cabbage. And there were four left in here, I gave one to the
ducks, one to each of the flocks of chickens and this one, this one is
staying here because I want some of that with my Christmas lunch. We won't have, I
don't have any sprouts to have with lunch. Mr. J's really not keen on sprouts and I
didn't grow any this year I haven't grown any for years actually. I might do,
might grow some next year, but I only need one plant, possibly two, if it's
only me that's eating them.
I'm conscious I sound really out of breath, I'm
probably not as out of breath as I sound - it is quite nippy out here,
Now the other thing I'm going to do to protect my garlic cloves from
birds, is I'm going to put a cover over this. So here's the debris netting.
There's two ways I can do it, I can literally just lay it on the ground or I
could make a little bit of a dome and in some ways because I got to go round this,
making a dome might make more sense. So I'll go and get my sticks and my hoops!
So what I have are some bits of old metal tubing which I'll just push into
the ground
And then pop some of this piping over the top of it. Now I actually want this
to go quite far into the ground if I can. Partly because it's so windy here and
partly because I don't need a very tall tunnel except for by the cabbage.
So I've secured the end with one stick going through the holes on the
centerline and then folded the pieces around and used my hand-fork just to
secure it into the ground. So it doesn't need to be rock-solid tight but it does
need to be enough to stop birds getting in. Because if they get in they won't
necessarily be able to get out again!
And so, wherever you are in the world and
whatever you've got planned for today, I hope it's good one and I also hope
you'll join me again next time!