And then I planted garlic!

Yesterday, for the first time, I planted garlic. I have always wanted to grow garlic but for some reason it never really panned out and this year I thought it wouldn't either; I have a community garden plot that gets rototilled every spring, so it just didn't seem to make sense. Garlic must be planted in the fall if it is to do well and between the spring tilling and the fall freezing, garlic just didn't seem to be in the cards.

But then, a few things magically conspired to make it work for me. First of all, the woman who runs the community garden told me that they had decided NOT to till next spring but instead to use the tilling rental cash to put beams between the plots. (I'm new to the garden and at first I thought she said "beans" which simultaneously excited and confused me, but anyway, I digress...)

Then, I was working a coffee gig at the market and I went early to admire the produce. Some folks had bags of local organic garlic for $6.00/lb which is about the going rate here and it was beautiful garlic with tight, fat cloves and a mauve skin. I asked about it and the woman told me that the variety is called "Music". Then, without prompting, she mentioned that I could plant it if I wanted to. I've read that Music does very well in Ontario, so I bought a bag thinking I could eat it all if I didn't plant it. (I like to slow roast whole heads of garlic with olive oil and salt and eat them, smeared on toast.)

Finally, my sister Karen boasted on Facebook that she had planted 300 cloves of garlic in her big garden and I became consumed by envy. I wanted a garlic garden too! I even had some garlic to plant! But those in the know say that root crops should always be planted under a waning moon and time was running out. I was in Toronto for a few days and when I got home it was the last day before the new moon. In Chinatown I found bags of shallots, 2 for a dollar. Why not? I said to myself.

So when I got home, I flew into action. First, I walked the dogs, then I threw garlic, shallots, stakes and red string into a bag with my gardening gloves and hurried off to the garden. I dug and cursed and planted and cursed and marked the plot with red string, then mulched it lovingly with yellow leaves. I only planted 30 garlic cloves and perhaps 8 shallots but I left feeling totally smug.

I won't have a whole lot of garlic but I'll have some and maybe even some shallots, too.