October Garden Ramblings & Planting Garlic

 

Our October weather has been pretty wonky. A bit up and down and all around. We went from +23°C to a snow day and then right back up again! 

All the while, we (mostly hubby) have been working on garden clean up. The snow melted that very same day so was no big deal (Canadian Thanksgiving Sunday, of course), did not slow us down a bit. 

As we took down the gardens, we piled the organics in the center raised bed. It was the first to be emptied, so we are using it as a holding area. 

This is well after the short snow day. 

Perennial 'potato onions' and frosted sunflowers left standing for the birds. 

We brought in some compost for the garden beds and mulch for the weeds. 

That corner by the trellis is where I used to grow both dill and wild oats for the dogs to eat. They love the 'grassy' bits. However, it was getting to be one heck of a mess as both the oats and the dill were spreading and self seedings happily. 

We dug out what we could, layered it all up with cardboard, and then mulched heavily. Let's see what comes through in spring. I want the dil... but not the oats. 

A good 2 to 3 inches of compost top dressing the raised bed to feed the soil life. 

We are getting there! The beds are empty, the beds have been fed, the patio has been emptied of all the flower pots and furniture. The table is the last thing to put away for winter. 

It has been a few years since we fed that garden that runs along the fence, so it was beyond time. Some compost top dressing now and it will be good to go in spring. I like to plant flowers around the 'baby' trees. 

There is something magical about sitting on the patio, surrounded on all sides by flowers. Watching the bees buzzing, the birds dipping in for a drink of water from the bee bath, or looking for bugs on the flowers. 

I just put these sunflowers on the arbour a couple of days ago and you can see how busy the birds have been already! The chickadees love the seeds in the smaller heads of the multi stemmed sunflowers. 

Planting Garlic

Here is the garlic bed, all ready for winter. It is so easy to plant your garlic! Here is a quick how-to. 

• Empty out the bed from your summer stuff (mine were sunflowers and zinnias)
• Rake the surface smooth. 
• Weed, if needed. Garlic does not compete well with weeds. 

• If your soil is nice, soft, friable, plant right into it. 
• If not, you can loosen your soil with a broadfork (as seen above) or by rocking a garden fork in your rows. 
• This is for us no-dig gardeners who want to disturb our soil life as little as possible. 
• Garlic grows better/bigger if it can easily set down deep roots. 

The rake helps us keep the rows straight. 

• Break your garlic into cloves. Keep the varieties separate, if you are growing several varieties. 
• Plant your garlic 6 or 7 inches apart in the rows. Make the rows the same distance apart.
• If you plant your garlic closer together, you will have smaller bulbs.
• Here on the prairies, push your garlic about 4 inches deep. 
• In warmer zones, like the west coast, just go down 2 inches so that the tip of the clove is just below the soil's surface.   

Feed your garlic. I make my own organic fertiliser by mixing...

2 cups bonemeal

1 cup blood meal

2 cups worm castings (or compost, or Acti-Soil hen manure pellets) 

Sprinkle some of the fertiliser on top of the cloves and then push back the soil. 

• Label your garlic, if you grow more than one variety. 
• This year, I am growing Yugoslavian, Music, Red Russian, and Purple Russian.
• I have been using the very same copper labels year after year, for nearly a decade. They still are very legible, the names have not faded away and they do not rot like wooden ones would. 
• I also use these labels for my roses and other garden plants. You could use them for your veggie patch, too. 
• Bonus... my dogs have not shown an interest in pulling these out of the ground, lol. Iykyk. (if you know, you know) 

If you were to buy something from one of my links, I would make a wee small commission. Thank you so much! 

Cover with leaves, if you have them. 

We topped the garlic bed with 2 inches of compost and then these dollar store trellises to keep the cat out of the bed. 

Ready to go for fall. If you have leaves, rake them on top of the bed. Do not shred the leaves. Stack 'em high! Remove the trellises as the cats will not go into the fluffy leaf pile. 

I absolutely adore this Pink Snowberry. It is even prettier than a Beautyberry bush (which we cannot grow here, and is super hardy. Thrives here on the prairies, too. The common one has white berries. 

Happy Gardening! Tanja