I planted my garlic patch about a month ago, as I usually do. It's the last thing I tend to put in at the end of the season, before allowing myself and the dirt a rest. Just as my bulbs were beginning to send up green shoots through their mulch, my neighbor Rita sent me over a couple bulbs of Elephant Garlic. Because it has been so unseasonably warm, I enjoyed the sunshine one afternoon last weekend and set to turning the ground up for a couple more rows of garlic. It seems strange to be gardening in late November, but this year, it is so.
After pulling apart the bulbs into cloves and loosening the soil, I dug my holes and dropped in the cloves. I tucked the soil back in around them and then added a nice blanket of straw for when winter does finally arrive.
And next summer, when the scapes have been harvested and the leaves have turned brown and fallen over, it'll be time to revisit my cloves, grown into full bulbs again. The magic of time and mother nature will provide my kitchen with flavors and smells to satisfy the senses.
Winter should not be considered as only negation and destruction. It is a secret and inward working of powers, which in spring will burst into visible activity. ~Henry James Slack
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