Monday, June 21, 2010

Winter Solstice = Garlic Planting.

Winter Solstice, To a lot of people that means "get your garlic planted" 
If you believe what you read then you plant in on the shortest day and pick it on the longest day. 

I do intend planting some today but I have already got a few lots in in different areas around the yard.  Today though I want to plant some under the Peach tree as I have read that it will deter leaf curl.

I will be planting garlic that we grew last year, some of it is already starting to sprout but that just means that it wont take so long to stick it's head out of the ground.

We don't eat a lot of garlic, not nearly as much as we should but I am not sure why.  I like the taste of it, it smells divine (if you like that sort of thing) and we have it here.  Maybe if I brought more inside instead of keeping it in the shed then it would get used more. 

Just thought that what I *should* do is chop it up and put it in the freezer so that we can just grab some ready to go.  That might get us to add it to more stuff.  It's silly to have so much and to be wanting to plant more when we don't use what we have. 

At least I wont be buying the cloves to plant so it's not like it's costing me anything but I do need to use what we grow or grow something that we will use.

Winter Solstice doesn't mean Garlic planting to everyone though.  To some people it's just the shortest day of the year and so from tomorrow our days will start to get longer again.  Soon it wont be so dark at 5am and I will be able to be outside when I get up and see what I am doing.  It's actuallt 1/4 to 7 here now and still way too dark to see anything out there.

How will you celebrate it L?  Will you be dancing naked under the trees?

2 comments:

  1. Hi Barb I love garlic and last year grew over 100 bulbs, this year I am aiming for more. I will plait most and sell some at our local produce stall mind you so does everyone else..lol Only the soft necked garlic you can plait.

    I have planted a heap about 6 weeks ago and it is so tall already. It will be interesting to see which is better.

    Instead of freezing your garlic (it may loose flavour) you could chop it and store it in olive oil in the fridge as long as the olive oil is kept over the garlic it will be okay. You could also make some garlic vinegar by adding garlic to cider vinegar or anytype for salad dressings. I just hang mine in the plait as this stores it well and generally it keeps for almost the whole year. I use it a lot.

    I planted garlic under all my stone fruit last year and still got curly leaf in some of them. sigh but not the older ones. The trees that did were new ones Iput in last winter the others were two seasons in my garden.

    Happy planting and happy winter solistice.

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  2. Thanks for that tip Aussiemade. I will try that.
    I need to up my garlic intake aparently. I have been told it is good for what ails me.

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