a softneck garlic, from a warmer climate, Derald had some extra and winged it to me to give it a try.
put it in with the rest of the garlic so the conditions were the same as the regular hard necked garlic i usually grow.
soil was fairly well worked clay with plenty of other organic materials added so that it was in excellent condition, had been groing beans there the past few years so it was due for a rotation into something else.
planted at the same time as the hard- neck garlic (early last fall).
the ajo rojo was ready before the hard- neck garlic and i dug it up last week. much smaller head in comparison (about
1/3 the size). i dug up three of the neighboring hardneck garlic heads to see how they were doing even if they weren't quite ready yet.the surrounding conditions were fairly good. irises to the south which don't block much of the sun through the fall winter or spring. i also planted winter wheat along the south side and trimmed it back early in the spring to allow full sunlight to get to the garlic. to the north i also had winter wheat and winter rye as a wind break and that did not block any light at all. the patch was kept fairly well weeded up until about a month ago so the garlic had very little competition from the weeds for nutrients or moisture, but we've also had plenty of rain up until the past few weeks.
maybe some rain coming up. if so it may draw out the time to harvest for the remaining garlic by a few more weeks, but i hope not... as it is i should be in there weeding and planting peas for the fall crop but i'm so busy with other things going on lately that i doubt i'll get to it.
tomatoes, onions, peppers, beans all doing well enough and one patch of beets doing ok too.
the japanese beetles seem to really love the wild grape vines this season. a real bugger too as they are swarming there and then taking side swipes at the beans from time to time. i can pick them off the beans all day and more will keep coming along. not sure what kind of harvest i'll get this year between the bugs and the critters but it should continue to be interesting. :)
songbird