Cleanup and Plant Garlic

“To dream a garden and then to plant it is an act of independence and even defiance to the greater world.” - Stanley Crawford

Cleaning up one of the spots where garlic will be planted for next year, trying to get it in the ground as soon as possible before the ground freezes.

Freezing temperatures have come, your garden has been destroyed and you successfully cleaned up the garden by cutting the plants at the base and leaving the top part of the plant on the soil and the roots in the ground for them both to follow the natural process of decomposition which will improve your soil health for next year, now what?

Fortunately and unfortunately, we're now back to square one as we follow this cyclical journey that is gardening and life.  Before winter arrives, it is now time to plant your garlic for next year.  Garlic loves the cold and it's important to get it planted before winter comes while the ground is still workable so it can have plenty of time to enjoy the cold winter and grow when it's warm.  Ideally, you want to get an inch or two of growth out of the garlic before winter fully arrives, don't fret if that doesn't happen though.  I'm almost always late to planting garlic, I rarely get growth before the winter and it will still grow come the warm winter days or spring time.

The beauty of planting the garlic before the winter is the garlic will grow significantly before the ground is workable in the spring.  If you wait until the early spring to plant the garlic you have to fight both the weather and the frozen ground to try and get your garlic planted, which isn't any fun and there are better things to do with your time come early spring.  By planting your garlic before winter you are giving yourself a head start on next year, which you likely know by now that when it comes to gardening (and life) if you can do anything to make your time more efficient and useful, you should probably do it, we don't have any time to waste after all.

When planting your garlic, you don't necessarily need to wait until your garden is fully cleaned up to plant your garlic.  You just need to be able to dig into the soil so if the ground freezing over is imminent you can always plant the garlic in-between the dead plants, then cleanup the plants later.  It can't be pointed out enough that garlic is very forgiving and fun to grow so don't worry about killing it, you could potentially kill it, but you probably won't.

Get your garlic planted by following my in-depth garlic planting guide.

It's one of the first articles in my handy and almost complete guide of how to urban farm.

If you're curious what my garden looks like at the moment then checkout this short video I made that shows you exactly that.  Yes, I'm far behind with getting the urban farm cleaned up and the garlic planted, but the weather has been nuts this year, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!!!