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Hi All,

I have planted out 34 cloves of Bella Italino garlic,17 of which have been given inoculated charcoal compost.

The other 17 have been given normal compost, as always I use a bulb planter to ensure that the cloves receive sufficient nutrient where it matters at the roots.

The 17 cloves given the special charcoal compost were also infected with VAM's to ensure that viable VAM's would infect the roots and thereby give the garlic greater amounts of nutrition.

To boost the effect I have also added a handful of inoculated charcoal to each planting hole. This I hope will increase the number of VAM's and therefore the end yield of garlic.

This is the first time that I have cultivated this particular garlic, large cloves coming from Italy with a strong flavour. I like a garlic which bites back, it has much greater health benefits if eaten raw, once cooked it is merely an aid to digestion.

Raw garlic if rubbed onto the soles of your feet will be evident on your breath within 30 seconds, this was an ancient method of treating severe bronchitis. The patient was seated upright on the bed and the soles of the feet were plastered with mashed raw garlic and then bandaged. The plaster was changed every 4 hours this remedy saved many an ailing person from an early demise!

I have also planted out 32 cloves of Vayo in the same fashion,as with my Bella Italino cloves I first gave the soil a good drench with concentrated EM's. I then left the soil for a week, to allow the acidity of the EM's to dissipate then planted my cloves.

I have no idea what the previous allotment tenant planted out or where she planted it. So thought that drenching this soil with neat EM's would be helpful In outnumbering any harmful bacteria or fungi residual within the soil.

I like Vayo both for taste and for its keeping qualities, however German red were my favourite but sadly no longer seem to be available in the UK.

We had our first frost tonight much later than usual, our usual first frost date is mid October it was -1 deg tonight 5-11-11. You can usually tell by the state of courgettes and runner beans as they are very susceptible to frost damage. Down at the allotments it was more evident the next morning, the runner bean wigwams all had blackened foliage.

Every other shop in Glasgow is selling snow shovels in anticipation of a hard winter, do they know something I don't know, or just cashing in on the fear factor?

Uriel

The mind is like a parachute, its totally useless unless its open