Garlic is in!

We finished up our raised bed, and planted our garlic yesterday! We planted a lot more this year than last year. There are so many ways to use garlic, I think it's almost impossible to plant too much! We ordered our garlic from We Grow Garlic this year, and I think we will continue to order from them in the future. They have great service matched by a fantastic selection of garlic.

Here I am planting garlic. We plant them with 4 inches in between every way.
(Side Note: Overalls are fantastic for pregnant bellies).

We planted three different varieties of garlic this year: Red Toch, Pennsylvania Dutch, and New York White. We ended up planting 56 cloves of Red Toch (area outlined by red), 12 cloves of Pennsylvania Dutch (outlined by blue), and 10 cloves New York White (outlined by white).

I did keep a few cloves of Red Toch to the side to try with a pasta dish I'm making this evening. I'm really hoping to try using some of the Red Toch for homemade garlic powder. I know if we end up with good results on the garlic powder, we will be expanding our garlic production next year.

We covered the garlic, watered the bed well, and then topped it off with a layer of dry leaves as mulch. Last year, we used straw. Unfortunately, the straw we used still had quite a few seed heads left in it. It made that much more work for us in terms of weeding. Leaves are not only free, but we're hoping to avoid the extra weeding work in the spring as well.

We surround our bed with mesh fencing for a few reasons. Big sister and little sister seem to want to treat our garden boxes like they would a sandbox. The dogs have a tendency to walk through garden beds too. The added bonus of the mesh fencing is we can pile mulch a bit higher as well. It works out very well for us.

Now we can eagerly await our garlic harvest next year!