Garlic

I planted garlic today. The ground was soggy and it looks like it's just going to rain for days more. Perhaps I shouldn't have...but I also didn't want to wait too long. I stuck a stick in the soil to make a hole and dropped each piece in. There were about 13 total. Half of them were totally peeled and the other half, not peeled. It was hard to tell which way I should go. Of course I failed to mark which were which. Only now can I think of that.

I had to plan a little bit to figure out where to put the garlic. So I figure I'll put tomatoes near the "front" end on the left side. Garlic went there. I also had some little teeny "seed" garlic (??) that I planted with much less hopefulness. I put some by the raspberries and some by the rosebush because I read somewhere that this was a good idea. I also put a few by the lilies at the side of the shed (as shown in the picture above). 100 is a lot..I didn't treat them like individuals. Sometimes my life is like this too -- I make good plans and think a lot but then the actual doing falls short. It's rainy or I'm sick or both and my brain shuts off. I think the big cloves of garlic (bogatyr variety) will be fine. The small cloves - who knows. 99 cents so I suppose it won't have been an expensive mistake.

I'm also looking around the yard and thinking about where to place the currant and aronia and highbush cranberry plants (not to mention the seedless grapes, strawberries, raspberries and gooseberry) I'm getting in the spring. Was I seriously hyperactive when I made that order? Certainly there are some "useless" bushes that can be taken out. And a dead tree.

While planting the garlic I noticed that the alfalfa has already sprouted, which was encouraging. I put stakes in the soil to remind me where I planted garlic. And I had the moment of discipline required to write it down here in my growth journal.