Last year we spent about £10 on garlic bulbs from the garden centre, and grew them on the allotment. Unfortunately, getting married in June we neglected the veg patch at the most important point and the poor things were swamped by weeds. This is bad as garlic (like onions) has very shallow roots and competes very poorly with weeds. The spring planted garlic barely did anything, the winter planted stuff did ok - presumably as it had a head start while the weeds were down.
We grew enough to supply us up to now, and have decided the rest should go for growing next year. Queue me spending a happy half hour in the gathering gloom last Saturday putting cloves into modules just to make sure it can get going for spring - we'll decide where it's going later i.e. when it's not so cold and wet at the allotment. I first heard of doing this on Carol Klein's TV programme, and think it's a spiffing idea. This way they get a head start on the weeds when we plant them out.
So, together with my birthday Elephant garlic (bought from The Garlic Farm on the Isle of Wight at the Royal Berks Fair) (rock on, I'm that cool) I currently have 104 cloves growing, plus the 2 rows on the allotment, which might just keep us stocked for the year, with enough to plant for the following year. Hurrah!
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