Planting garlic

Rosemary planting the garlic

The new gardening year starts here.  We have found a way of planting garlic that gives good results, avoiding too much loss to the White Onion Rot virus that infects our allotment.  It seems that the longer the garlic (and onions) are in the ground the more likely they are to suffer from this disease.

We put the cloves into trays of compost and then plant them out on the allotment when they are well established and growing strongly.  The trays can be put outside as they are frost tolerant (I have even read that they need frost or a cold period in the ground to trigger good bulb development) but they need to be protected from the birds who love to tug them out.

For the second year running we have used the Dobies 'Garlic Lovers Selection'.  This provides 2 bulbs of 4 different varieties and worked out very well in 2010.  We don't use our own kept garlic as this seems like a good way of spreading the White Onion Rot.