Soil amendment question
 

Carrots are coming back from last year, so are the onions and garlic in
my small backyard garden. I'm looking to amend the soil around them and
where they are currently growing because it is so hard, using pete moss
and steer manure & some of my 'not so successful first time attempt' at
composted , ahem, materialG! My hope is that things will grow
heartier and the soil won't be as hard as a brick like it is now.

Thoughts on digging up the entire area and replanting the carrots,
onions and garlic or amend the unused portions and wait until fall(?) to
amend those areas?

Speaking of garlic, when is basic harvest time for it?

And for you still in the cold, 82º yesterday, a record temp.
Zone 7, Albuquerque, NM.

Soil amendment question
 

Grandpa wrote:

Carrots are coming back from last year, so are the onions and garlic in
my small backyard garden. I'm looking to amend the soil around them and
where they are currently growing because it is so hard, using pete moss
and steer manure & some of my 'not so successful first time attempt' at
composted , ahem, materialG! My hope is that things will grow
heartier and the soil won't be as hard as a brick like it is now.

Thoughts on digging up the entire area and replanting the carrots,
onions and garlic or amend the unused portions and wait until fall(?) to
amend those areas?

Speaking of garlic, when is basic harvest time for it?

And for you still in the cold, 82º yesterday, a record temp.
Zone 7, Albuquerque, NM.



82 would feel really good! It's snowing like crazy here right now
and they forecast a low of zero F tonight. March is still winter but
April changes everything.

If you plan to eat those carrots, you had better try them now to see
if it's already too late or not. In the second season, the carrot
turns woody and sends up a flower shoot to make new seeds.
When your garlic regrows, each clove will try to make a plant of its
own and they will be too crowded to make full size garlic heads.
Don't try to spread them now because they have grown all their
roots. You could probably thin them out to reduce the crowding. In
the future, pull your garlic as soon as the leaves start to die off.
Do it before they get too dead or the cloves will fall apart (guess
how I know this). Replant properly spaced cloves in the fall for the
next year.
The onions will be OK but they, too, will try to go to seed. They
will also divide themselves so they may end up smaller. They will be
edible.

Get the organic material of your choice in there to loosen up the
soil and keep a layer of mulch on the surface all or most of the
time to keep it from drying and baking in the sun.

Steve in the Adirondacks ... where I don't mulch much because I NEED
the sun to warm and dry the soil.