[Market-farming] planting garlic
Road's End Farm
organic87 at frontiernet.net
Tue Sep 16 09:05:36 EDT 2008
On Sep 15, 2008, at 9:39 PM, Glen Eco Farm wrote:
> I haven't been mulching my garlic and generally it does fine in our
> mild
> Virginia winters, leaving open the option of running through in the
> spring
> with cultivators. This year I might mulch at least part of it just to
> see
> if it gives me some advantage.
I always mulch it up here in New York (straw mulch). If I don't,
repeated freeze and thaw cycles can heave the cloves right out of the
ground. You can push them back in again and they'll grow, but it
definitely sets them back. -- This, I expect, does vary a good bit
depending on where you are. Either reliable snow cover all winter, or
significantly warmer winters, might well remove the necessity for straw
(though I think it does have additional benefits through the season).
I cultivate garlic in the spring anyway, with the old Troybilt
rototiller. Occasionally I have to stop to get packed straw out of the
tines, especially on the first cultivation; but for the most part I can
just pause once in a while and lift the tines and most straw will just
fall out. I spread the straw by hand, though, and lay it so it's mostly
right on top of the row; there isn't much inbetween the rows. If you
put it in with some sort of mechanized chopper, I expect it's as thick
between the rows as in them, which might make it impossible to
cultivate unless you pulled the straw out first.
-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale
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