The post today is on a crop with a long and tortuous path, and one that isn’t finished not by a long shot. Garlic is such an amazing plant with a multitude of uses that I was excited when I first tried growing it. The excitement was short lived however as when the plants were dug as their tops died down. I found bulbs that were not substantially bigger than the ones I had planted. This was in my old intensive style garden that relied on truckloads of mushroom compost and regular irrigation.
When facing a failure like this there are a lot of different ways to
respond. One option I have become fonder of as I get older is to simply give up
on that particular plant and focus my energy on something that is more
sincerely rewarding. The opposite extreme is to throw everything and the
kitchen sink at the problem, hoping that if you just add enough of the right
ingredient or work hard enough at the right technique then the problem can be
solved.
With biological systems there are a multitude of possible causes for
failure. Was the crop planted too early or too late? Watered too much or not
enough? Was there too much fertiliser, too little, or even more diabolical the
wrong balance of any of dozens of nutrients and minerals. Or it could be something
about the soil itself, or the day lengths were too different at our latitude to
places further south where garlic normally grows, or our winters simply weren’t
cold enough. I tried growing it again on a smaller scale with new bulbs and got
the same result.
As it turned out life got in the way and I stopped gardening for a
few years. When I got back to it I noticed a few other folk were growing garlic
as far north as Bundaberg, and even close by but usually further inland where
the soil is quite different to mine. My earlier stock had come from mail order
nurseries further south, so I thought it was worth trying again with the three
unnamed varieties I knew could grow close by.
Like all my other cool season beds I simply top dressed some
uncomposted goat manure and a bit of wood ash and charcoal, then hoed the
topsoil from the paths up onto the beds during the summer after the geese had
been through the area. Once the weather cooled a touch in March I divided my
garlic bulbs and planted them about 10cm apart in two rows. As before they
sprouted, got a follow up weeding later in the season, a top dressing of
camphor laurel leaves, and then left to die down in early spring. During the
early season there was a lot of rain so the gardens were quite boggy, but the
rain stopped in early winter so the ground was quite dry by spring.
To my surprise they had formed useable bulbs about 3 to 5cm across,
with distinct cloves that allowed them to be divided and replanted. Why had
they filled out now when they failed during previous attempts? With so many
possible factors it is almost not worth even asking the question, though I
suspect the goat manure with its different mineral balance is the main reason.
The smaller bulbs that had not filled out well were eaten since they were
unlikely to store well. The large ones were strung up on the veranda over the
summer. One variety almost completely dried up and died during storage and its
few remaining bulbs were discarded. The other two were replanted this year
along with a couple of new strains from different sources. Once again they
performed pretty well considering the difficult conditions. The soil was like
concrete at harvest, with large slabs of clay being levered out with a tuber
hidden in the middle. A careful shovel strike would split it open like a geode
with a precious bulb wedged inside. My initial planting of less than 500g of
very small cloves have a total yield of just over 2kg, though this included the
living roots and stems that will be slowly absorbed into the tubers soon.
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| Dried off garlic ready for harvest. I should have taken photos when they were green. |
There are a few reasons I have been more persistent in learning to
manage garlic compared to most other crops. It is in the Allium family, with
spring onions giving their best harvests through late autumn to mid spring, and
garlic chives coming on after the first good summer rains in January most
years. This leaves a bit of a gap from late spring through summer, drawing out
longer during droughty years. Garlic fills this gap nicely with harvests in
early spring and ease of storage for a few months. Another reason is that
garlic is so much more than just a vegetable. Even the bland bloated bulbs
imported from China have potent medicinal properties.
My years of being plagued by persistent ear infections are past now
I know the power of fresh garlic infused olive oil trickled down the ear canal
(the relief is almost instant). Home grown is much more potent, especially when
grown under my zero input conditions, so garlic is definitely a crop where the
total weight of the crop isn’t the most important factor. This potency can be
further preserved by storing peeled cloves in honey, the planned use for the
smallest bulbs this year. I haven’t tried this before so I will have to let you
know how it turns out down the track.
Garlic is a perfect example of a crop that bridges the divide
between food and medicine, a distinction that doesn’t really exist for anything
if you look closely enough. Garlic will always be a minor crop for me,
especially since it is effectively sterile so the potential for further
breeding and local adaptation is very limited (though amateur plant breeders
are working to restore fertility and diversity overseas, so never say never).
But it offers sufficient unique benefits that it was worth the slow and
frustrating journey to this point. Hopefully garlic and I can grow to
understand each other even better in the future.
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