GARLIC FOR THE HOME GARDENER

When I was growing up we never ever had garlic in our home. It was only used by immigrants from Europe, my mother told us. It is smelly stuff and nobody likes you around if you eat it. It does smell, if you eat it raw, but the``Alisin`` content of the garlic for medicinal use is only in the raw garlic. It apparently stimulates your blood circulation and regulates cholesterol. Quite a strong garlic way to get your blood going, but it works, even on animals.

I have seen horsemen give their horses ground up garlic with a bit of vegetable oil added through an extra large syringe. They report that it not only gives race horses better circulation and helps their breathing, but also keeps the flies off the animals. The alisin comes right out on their hair coat and the flies don't like it. I see no reason you couldn't make an organic insecticide with garlic juices in water and sprayed on plants.

There are many kinds of garlic available

They include Siberian garlic, Belarus garlic, Polish White garlic, Lorz Italian garlic, Music garlic, Kazakhstan garlic, Purple Glazer garlic with bright purple and silver skin, and many more.

WHERE TO BUY VARIOUS TYPES OF GARLIC IN CANADA

Richters , Goodwood, Ontario L0C 1A0 , Canada.

OrderDesk@Richters.com website www.Richters.com

Richters is a world in itself of "Herbs of all kinds and Veggies" for plants and or seed for gardeners. They have on line shopping and make shipments all over the world.

Oh, how wrong could my mother have been. I tried garlic in our cooking, sort of by trial and error. This is the way I learn, by hands on experimenting. I make a mean pot of "Newfoundland Boiled Dinner" and a ‘Newfie' would not put garlic in his boiled dinner. Harold, on the other hand, has tried as well as the traditional ‘Newfie' onions, some garlic, and/or leeks, and/or green onions. The only spice a Newfoundlander would use is pepper. You don't need salt with the very salty, salted naval beef that flavours the dinner and when totally boiled for two or three hours is edible. Harold, on the other hand, uses, chopped fresh basil, chopped parsley leaf, dried summer savoury, chopped sweet pepper, chopped ‘Maggie' (Loveage), and would try any other spicy herb at least once. I have also added parsnip, root parsley, chestnut meats, red cabbage, Italian flat parsley to name a few diversions from the Newfoundland recipe. To get that recipe, I will be making another hub devoted to that subject only, where I will pass on the original from my friend ``Newfie`` to you, plus all my alternates. So watch for a hub called Newfoundland boiled dinner, or Jigg`s Dinner coming from Harold.

I started adding two or three cloves of garlic in a large cooking pot (makes dinner for two 4 or 5 times over). After just once, I increased that to be one whole cluster of garlic cloves, and that was heavenly good.

In Ontario the biggest and best garlic to grow is "Music Garlic" with extra giant cloves. This is a garlic introduced by a Mr. Music that has high alisin content and very large cloves. Those in the pictures are Music Garlic.

In September clean up some cloves from your recently harvested garlic and use only the very large cloves for planting. In late September and before October 15^th , plant these cloves. You only need as many as you will need for next years seed, and for all the culinary use you might possibly need. Plant a few extra as your needs may increase.

Two days before planting, put the cloves in a pail of cold water to get the roots to start growing.

Prepare row or rows long enough to plant out the seed you have made ready.

Along this row or these rows, spread a bucket or two of well rotted manure and then use rota tiller to incorporate this into the top six inches of soil. The mushroom compost in my 'Mulches' hub worked perfect for me. You need the soil loose, so work it more than one time.

Now spread about one handful for each three garlic cloves, of 6 - 24 - 24 farm fertilizer along the intended row line. Now use a rake to draw the loose soil in over top of the spread fertilizer to make a mound lengthwise of the row. (See picture).

Into this mound and at 6-8 inch spacing push the cloves down (root side down) into the loose mound about two thirds of the depth of the mound. Cover with some loose soil and now sprinkle another handful or two of 6-24-24 along over top of the finished planting.

If you are close to a garden hose, water your planting for ten minutes with a sprinkle wand. This watering can be repeated the following day. It is necessary to add moisture, so the roots will form before winter.

You can now enjoy winter and will see your garlic coming up similar to onions in the spring. In early June, you will have seed scapes form on each garlic and they are cut off (cut off and cook in stew or soup) to stop seed formation and to send growth to the forming clove clusters below.

The second week of July, pull one garlic and see how mature it is. If membrane over the cloves is not splitting, leave one more week and then pull to let dry. Cut the stem off one inch above the cluster and rinse soil off with garden hose. Now the clusters are ready to be dried in a cool dry place out of the sun until dry enough to store.

Store your garlic, hung up in a 10 lb size onion bag, so they will stay dry, and you can hang them up out of the way, where you can get one for the kitchen any time you need. This cycle happens again for next year starting in September the same as at the top of ``the growing`` above.

If garlic is not harvested by 25^th of July, the membrane splits over the cloves and lets soil imbed into the cluster making it not look as good or keep as well as the ones harvested sooner.

Happy Gardening and good eating ---from Gardener Harold.