The mysterious case of the weeds in (some of) the garlic beds

April 2, 2015.Reading time 1 minute.

My side return is, by definition, narrow. And the raised beds that I have there (filled with garlic and rhubarb) are currently performing very nicely. I have eight varieties of garlic in there, and three of rhubarb. The side return is technically south facing but it’s so narrow that the sun hits it for about […]

Snow joke when the weather confuses your plants

February 3, 2015.Reading time 2 minutes.

First it was my poor Brown Turkey fig tree, getting completely confused because I brought it into my warm dining room. Now it’s my poor garlic. Stupid weather. There’s a lot of pity in me for my poor garden. My garlic, dutifully planted on the shortest day of last year so that it could have […]

Planting garlic on the shortest day of the year

January 6, 2015.Reading time 3 minutes.

Dahlia checking the garlic bulbs pre-planting Garlic takes a good long time to mature and so traditionally it would be planted on the shortest day to give it enough time to grow big and strong in time for harvest on the longest day of the year. And so it was that on the 21st of […]