Yeah it's late, but I don't care

Well, I've done it. I've added another garden task to the list of things I need to stop thinking about and just do. Earlier this year it was the blueberry plants that I finally bought. Now, it's garlic. I've wanted to plant garlic for years, but since it's best planted in the fall and that's the time of year when I'm not really thinking about edibles, I always forget or don't get around to it.

I didn't get around to it last fall either, even though I talked a few times with my neighbor who did plant a whole bed of garlic before winter. Seeing a cheap bag of garlic at the big box store the other weekend, I decided to buy it and give spring planting a go.

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I expect to either get very small heads since I didn't plant in the fall, or nothing.  Even if I get nothing useful, that's exactly what I'll have if I don't plant it, so what do I have to lose?

Besides, I need something to motivate me to finish cleaning up this planting bed. I started it a few weeks ago for my onion sets, and now it's time to finish.

The problems here are the same as with the first half of the bed: weeds, turf grass, the rocks that line the fence, and garlic chives:

Garlic chives. You'd think this was my main food
source based on the large number of plants I have.

I'll start by cutting a little trench to indicate the edge of the bed:

Then I'll use my flat-blade spade to strip the sod of weeds and turf. I was going to just compost the garlic chives, but when I dug them out I just couldn't bring myself to destroy a plant that was doing so well, so I transplanted a couple clumps nearby.

I'll probably regret it later this year, but maybe I'll stop them from dropping seed and things will be fine.

That's not grass -- it's garlic chive seedlings.

You can see the thick carpet of garlic chive seedlings growing here next to the "rocks" (concrete chunks), which I'll be removing. It's just too hard to weed between the rocks, so they'll have to go. Gives me more planting room too.

So that's the slate cleared. I left the small clump of chives at the end of the bed:

I love these flowers, and they don't seem to reseed as crazily as the garlic chives do, so I've got a clump at each end of this bed. This one should get much larger this year.

Time to work on the soil. Since it's heavy clay and still pretty wet, I'm not going to work it as much as I normally would. I removed several shovelfuls of soil:

Added a few inches of compost:

Worked it in somewhat:

Then returned the soil that was removed (after breaking it up a bit in the wheelbarrow):

Finally, more compost goes on top and I'm ready for planting:

Three heads (is that the right term?), $0.50 each:

Break them up, then lay out on top of the compost to get the spacing right:

Then just poke them into the compost (pointy side up), water and wait.

As I said I don't expect much to happen, but at the very least it will remind me to plant garlic again this fall I hope.

By the way, I ate one of the smaller cloves just to see what I could expect if and when I harvest. Not really a great choice for an early-morning garden snack. At least I'm working out here alone this morning.

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