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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] planting garlic
  • Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:05:36 -0400


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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