Planting Garlic
Dropped down to the plot this afternoon with the intention of putting some more woodchip down and planting my garlic. The garlic’s been sitting in the cool garage waiting a bit too long and I thought it was best done now before it’s too late.
I’d bought some Solent Wight, an English soft necked variety and some Music a hard necked variety from our forum member WG.
They both went into the new deep bed on plot 5, the Solent Wight to one side and the Music to the other, by plot 4. I started with the Solent Wight, planting equidistant at 8″ spacing. Although you can get away with less, I really want to get a decent crop next year and I’ve got the space. When I peeled the cloves away from the bulbs, the outer cloves were quite substantial but towards the middle they got considerably smaller and thinner. These went in at just 6″ spacing and the last row of tiddlers went in at 3″. They won’t produce large bulbs so I thought a more normal spacing would be sufficient.
WG’s garlic bulbs are smaller but the cloves are consistently larger and even. No tiddlers in these at all so they were all spaced at 8″. If the crop is as good as the seed bulbs, we’ll be well pleased.
Unfortunately hard necked garlic doesn’t keep as well as soft necked so we’ll have to put our thinking caps on about preserving it if it grows as I hope.
Wood Chippings.
Unfortunately the other half of my plan didn’t come to anything. All the wood chippings were gone. There’s quite a few of us on the site who use the wood chippings for paths between beds and plots so I wasn’t that surprised except when I realised one plot holder had been an absolute selfish greedy pig. He’s not just put it onto his paths, he’s piled it about a foot thick on his paths and even decided to spread out a load on the main path in front of his plot. It really annoys me how a few people being so inconsiderate can spoil things for everyone else.
If the lazy ones who have to drive up the path to their plots had managed to consider the roadway, then that would have been good enough to get half the chippings up to the other side of the site for those plotholders and perhaps friend greedy wouldn’t have grabbed the lot.
I suppose I have to remember that allotmenteers are people and just like everyone else. In fact generally they’re a friendly, helpful and considerate bunch but there’s always one or two.
Brussels Sprouts
Val came down with me and took off another picking of sprouts. They’re doing well and today we got enough for two meals so half will get frozen. I still can’t believe the difference in taste between home-grown sprouts, properly cooked and the smelly sludge balls of my memory. We took down the kitchen waste bucket at the same time, which went into the bin on plot 29. Recycle and reuse.
Yes, even selfish people have allotments. I had a pile of wood at the front of my plot for making raised beds, etc, and noticed it appeared to be growing smaller. I found it piled on someone else’s plot in full view of anyone passing and considering the wood was quite distinctive, (dismantled bookcases) I took it back and placed it in my shed. A sad state of affairs and hit my faith in fellow allotmenteers, but there is always one I suppose that spoils it for everyone else.
Keep blogging, always look forward to your posts.
Thanks James, made a pretty grumpy John smile !
To redress the balance, the wooden bench seat on my plot was given me by another plotholder so not everyone is a selfish thieving git (oops, better take another stress pill, obviously)