Smells like home

One thing i loved about growing up in San Jose was the delicious garlic that came from just down the road in Gilroy.  When the wind blew the right way you could smell fresh garlic in the air, and in the summer there was even a festival full of delicious garlicy food and fun.  Eventually i moved away, down to southern california.  It is a long drive back to San Jose from San Diego, seven or eight hours.  There is a particular part of the drive where you come down out of the hills, and the garlic smell hits you.  This was always a signal to me that i was almost home, giving me that wake up needed to get the last bit of the long drive done.

This is the time of year to plant garlic, for harvest next summer, so i asked Mom to send me some wonderful gilroy garlic to plant at the new house.  And was very excited when this package showed up on my doorstep.

Planting garlic is a really simple process.  All you need to do is get some good quality garlic and pull it apart.  The larger cloves are best for planting, and the smaller center cloves are going in my Garlic Potato soup tonight.

I chose a planting bed that we have already in front of our garage that gets plenty of light i think. The first step was to turn the soil.  Then i piled up some really great compost on top to make a nice little raised bed.  All you do is plant the little cloves six inches apart and inch or two bellow the surface.

While i was at it i also planted some onion sets, individually, and in groups for green onions too.  Hopefully it all comes out well next summer.