ajo rojo garlic
 

a softneck garlic, from a warmer climate,
Derald had some extra and winged it to me
to give it a try.

put it in with the rest of the garlic so
the conditions were the same as the regular
hard necked garlic i usually grow.

soil was fairly well worked clay with
plenty of other organic materials added
so that it was in excellent condition,
had been groing beans there the past few
years so it was due for a rotation into
something else.

planted at the same time as the hard-
neck garlic (early last fall).

the ajo rojo was ready before the hard-
neck garlic and i dug it up last week.
much smaller head in comparison (about
1/3 the size). i dug up three of the
neighboring hardneck garlic heads to see
how they were doing even if they weren't
quite ready yet.

the surrounding conditions were fairly
good. irises to the south which don't
block much of the sun through the fall
winter or spring. i also planted winter
wheat along the south side and trimmed
it back early in the spring to allow full
sunlight to get to the garlic. to the
north i also had winter wheat and winter
rye as a wind break and that did not
block any light at all. the patch was
kept fairly well weeded up until about
a month ago so the garlic had very little
competition from the weeds for nutrients
or moisture, but we've also had plenty of
rain up until the past few weeks.

maybe some rain coming up. if so it
may draw out the time to harvest for the
remaining garlic by a few more weeks,
but i hope not... as it is i should be
in there weeding and planting peas for the
fall crop but i'm so busy with other
things going on lately that i doubt i'll
get to it.

tomatoes, onions, peppers, beans all doing
well enough and one patch of beets doing ok
too.

the japanese beetles seem to really love
the wild grape vines this season. a real
bugger too as they are swarming there and
then taking side swipes at the beans from
time to time. i can pick them off the beans
all day and more will keep coming along.
not sure what kind of harvest i'll get this
year between the bugs and the critters but
it should continue to be interesting. :)


songbird