Definitely Playing Catchup



I'm catching up on my jobs this week - my garlic usually goes into pots in November. In my defence the local garden centre had sold out and I'm still awaiting my first mail order of the Cristo variety. An emergency order with Suffolk Herbs at the end of November yielded 3 large bulbs of Thermidrome, ready for planting. They promised a minimum of 18 cloves, I planted out 25 lovely big, fat cloves today.
I'm still experimenting with planting times. My plot's too clayey for direct planting for overwinter, hence the potted approach. These have been put by my coldframes in the garden to shiver away there until the spring. I'll also plant some out directly onto the plot in February - hopefully the Cristo will have turned up by then as it really is the best variety to grow. My results with this belt and braces approach have been variable - some years the pot sown win, others the plot sown. It seems to depend on the amount of rain/frost we get. I had an almost total crop failure of February sown this year because of the warm weather. There was no frost to get the bulb/clove formation, so all I got was green stem. So last November's planting was definitely this year's winner.

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