Today was a windy but not wet day after a very rainy day yesterday. Knowing that all that rain would have softened up the ground, I decided to plant my garlic today. I had set aside several heads of the Inchelium Red that I harvested in July as this year's seed garlic. I had also purchased a head of "some German kind" of hardneck garlic at the farmers market this summer with plans to plant it, and 2 heads each of Siberian and Georgian Fire ordered from Seed Savers Exchange.
Armed with three-pronged cultivator, I removed weeds from the terraced bed just behind the house. After the weeds were gone and the soil loosened up, I lay down a piece of wire mesh framed with wood (a scavenge several years ago from the end of someone's driveway--there were 3 of these pieces, each one about 4' x 8', with 2" x 4" wire mesh, along with a sign that said "FREE"). The wire mesh was to be my planting grid, to keep the garlic spaced evenly apart. With a very tiny trowel that looks more like a toy than a tool, I dug a small hole in every third opening of the mesh, then dropped in one clove of garlic into each hole.
When I had filled up my grid, I removed the mesh, and covered over the holes with dirt as you can see here:
Simple as that, next year's garlic crop has been planted.
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