2018 garlic crop

Last winter the dreaded ‘rust’ spread an orange patina through the robust green leaves of my first garlic crop.

It was a pretty epic planting, filling out most of two, seven meter beds.

  

Though the bulbs were nice and plump, all of them eventually succumbed to the rust. I couldn’t use any of it for seed. This year I'm planning in a new crop out the back to get some environmental separation.

This spot between the banksias will be a second saffron plot next year...

… But this year I'm going to plant garlic

This square on the other side of the path was going to be asparagus, but I’ll fill it with garlic, and continue to develop the permanent asparagus bed for next year.

As soon as I plant something out the back, the neighbours chickens want to dig it up to have a look.

I’ve laid down boards and covered the naked dirt with ash to discourage their excavations.

The fungus hit most of New Zealand pretty hard. Some seed outlets have been forced to close so local seed has been hard to come by.
I purchased some from Awapuni Nurseries and was not impressed with their product.
The cloves were pre-germinated and a lot of them were quite small. I had to rush to pop them in the ground. Last winter the crop went down on the shortest day of the year.
If I had been splitting apart a bulb, I wouldn't have planted most of these smaller cloves that were shipped, wrapped in damp newspaper. Usually I can cook the smaller cloves but these limp germinated cloves wouldn't 'keep'.

Country Trading like meny kiwi vendors have had difficulty with the rust that has swept the country last season.
Their offering was pretty basic this year, and I miss the more exotic options they have usually have listed on the web site. I bought several bulbs, and I’m always impressed with their packaging and quality of product.

Now we wait and see what the winter throws at us.