flowerbug
Super Self-Sufficient
what happens? here we have a lot of clay so i raise up the areas where i plant the garlic by mounding up the dirt. otherwise i am usually planting the garlic in pretty fertile soil that has been amended with worms/worm castings and some organic matter the year before. i don't usually plant garlic into freshly amended soil other than the random bits of organic material that might still be in there from the previous year. i always rotate plant.
if it gets too dry during the spring or early summer i'll water it, but generally i don't do much else to it other than weed it. i plant it far enough apart so that the bulbs are not competing with each other for water or nutrients, plus it is easier to weed if there is enough space between the plants. i don't bother removing scapes.
the variety of garlic i grow is a hard-neck garlic and the largest cloves will get bigger than my thumbs across. not all cloves are that big, but enough are that those are what i use to replant (always using the largest cloves gives you bigger bulbs the next season).
i also used to plant extra cloves for green garlic as i really like that as a green onion substitute and it is easier for us to grow. just haven't gotten to it the past several years being too busy with other things that time of the year (projects)...
