soil s/b free of rocks and clay, you need good drainage and no rocks. i add bone meal and blood meal and compost, lots of compost to the bed, plant 3-4" deep. when done cover with 4-6" of mulch, i use shredded leaves. uncover around 3/10 to 3/25 as the greens should be up by then and leave 1" mulch. start looking about 3/10. tom

Hi, This is my first post to this forum and my 3rd year growing garlic. I live in the Willamette Valley which is cool this time of year but seldom gets below the mid-teens. I planted my garlic at the end of October which isn't really late except for the mud factor. This year, because there is are several varieties of weed that flourish during the winter, I decided to mulch the garlic with chopped wheat straw - which has kept the weeds down except for a few wheat sprouts. The problem that I didn't anticipate was a raccoon has found the mulch a great place to dig for worms and bugs. I've had to put bird netting over a frame to keep the guy out. Most of the garlic is up with the artichokes about 6" tall. Right now we are at the end of our porcelains and rocamboles and will be eating the silverskins until we run out. I haven't planted enough the first two years, but this year I planted 150 heads and counted 126 poking through the straw today. Unfortunately I didn't plant any silverskins because I was under the mistaken assumption that artichokes were good keepers. I guess we'll need to eat a lot of garlic in a hurry next fall.

Nice to know about garlic. I decided last week-end that I should start growing my own garlic, and I think I will follow the suggestion of planting anything that has green sprouts. I still have some garlic that I got at a Farmers' Market (Mar Vista), and so I will plant some of that. Does garlic need any special soil requirements? I have some Society Garlic in my yard, and so I assume if that does okay that regular garlic should as well. Should I plant it in pots to get better soil/drainage? My soil does not drain well. Lars

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