worm47

How to Make & Use a 
Whizbang Garlic-Planting Template

This is yours truly planting garlic with my garlic-planting template.

You can see and read more about how I plant garlic at this online essay: How I plant My Garlic

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To learn more about my garlic powder book, and to purchase an inexpensive pdf copy, click here: The Complete Guide to Making Great Garlic Powder

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Some of my Garlic Harvest

To read about (and see) how I harvest my garlic crop, click here: Harvesting Garlic 2007

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Pickled garlic scapes are something special!

To learn all about making pickeld garlic scapes, click my essay titled: Making Pickled Garlic Scapes

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Here's an idea!

To learn about my nifty garlic-curing invention, click this link: Curing Garlic Bulbs

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My wife and son at the farm market

If you would like to read about me selling my Herrick's Homegrown stiffneck garlic powder at the Ithaca N.Y. Farmer's market, click here: Selling My Garlic At The Farm Market



Updated Information

I am now growing garlic in garden beds and using black plastic mulch in conjunction with a small amount of straw on top. This 2015 essay explains how I made holes in the plastic and planted my garlic in the holes. But over the winter the plastic shifted and some of the garlic shoots speared their way right through the plastic mulch.

That experience got me to thinking that it might be a whole lot easier to just plant the garlic bulbs, then cover the bed with plastic mulch and wait for the pointed shoots to poke up under the plastic. When I can see where they are under the plastic, I can give a little tear in the plastic for the shoots to grow through. 

Well, it turns out that approach is much easier and this next picture shows the concept...

That picture was taken in the late fall. After the plastic was opened up for each shoot, I covered the bed with some straw to provide insulation over the winter. And straw over plastic serves to keep the bed much cooler through the warmer months than black plastic alone. Here is a picture of a garlic bed with straw over the plastic. No weeding at all is needed through the growing season!...

Harvest time...

This next picture shows my old (put still useful) planting template being used to lay out planting spots for a bed of garlic. Keep in mind that you don't necessarily need to make your garlic planting template as long as mine is. A shorter template would be more manageable.

In this next picture you can see that I've dusted the planting spots (with bread flour, in this instance). A garlic clove is planted in each spot, then the bed is covered with black plastic mulch.