This is the most bizzare thread ever. It even beats anything ironbar ever posted on the weirdness scale.
Great stuff from Fitzy.
Although I had intended for this thread to concentrate solely on the noble art of garlic cultivation, I have no problems with it be extended to cover all areas of horticulture.
Fantastic thread. I havnt set a ridge of spuds or veg in about two years due to being away working but since Iâm back on the farm now I intend on take it up again. I may just start with the garlic this weekend. Great info from Fitzy, he must spend hours weeding it though!
This is in the Irish Times today-
The hows and whys of autumn onions and garlic
by Fionnuala Fallon
A shortage of garlic means prices are likely to rise next year, so why not grow your own?
DRIP, DRIP, drip fell the raindrops last week, in what felt like one interminably long rainshower. It came as light drizzle, then heavy cloudbursts, followed by a grey, monotonous mizzle that made a mire of any vegetable plots. It also did for the annual autumn tidy- up in the OPWâs walled kitchen garden, because despite OPW gardeners Meeda Downey and Brian Quinnâs best intentions, a week of such watery weather made the task impossible.
âThe ground is soakingâ, complained Brian as he and Meeda took shelter in the Kubota tractor from yet another heavy shower. âEven just walking on it, the soil is sticking in a thick layer onto the soles of our boots, which is always a bad sign. Thereâs no point in us trying to dig, hoe or even hand-weed until things dry out a bit â weâd just do more harm than good.â
So, while the OPW gardeners are forced indoors to continue negotiations with the rain gods, this weekâs Urban Farmer column takes a look at the âhowsâ and âwhysâ of growing autumn onions, autumn shallots and garlic â three crops never grown in the walled garden because of the OPW gardenersâ ongoing battle to contain the spread of the dreaded onion white rot. Once present in any garden, this depressingly persistent fungal disease will attack all members of the Allium family, and is almost impossible to eradicate. But restricting the number and variety of allium crops grown in the walled garden throughout the year (including leeks, onions, shallots, chives, scallions and garlic) is one way the gardeners hope to curtail the disease. âTechnically we shouldnât grow any members of the onion family for at least eight years if we want to get rid of the disease, but thatâs not realistic. So instead weâre just growing the typical maincrops during the summer months and avoiding any of the overwintering cropsâ, explains Meeda.
Thankfully, most other gardeners can still grow these allium crops with relative impunity, as long as good garden hygiene (no diseased sets) and careful crop rotation is practised. And while organised gardeners will already have theirs in the ground since late September or October, even now in early November thereâs still just about enough time to plant autumn onion sets for harvesting next summer (look out for varieties such as Senshyu, Snowball, Shakespeare, Radar, Electric, Bianco and Troy). November is also the perfect month for planting out hardy shallot sets (known as Allium oschaninii, or Eschalote Grise /Griselle) and garlic cloves (any of the hard-necked types). Just keep in mind the fact that a friable, free-draining soil is the most important prerequisite to their success, as is a fertile, weed-free, compost-enriched spot in full sun (no fresh manure).
If the idea of a free-draining spot in full sun seems laughably unlikely at the moment, cast your mind forward to next summer and the anticipated pleasure of harvesting early onions, shallots and your very own home-grown garlic. It was, after all, the idea of the latter that first inspired GIY founder Michael Kelly (giyireland.com) to begin growing his own vegetables, when he realised that the garlic sold in his local supermarket was being shipped all the way from China. Whatâs more, garlic prices are expected to rise steeply next year, due to a worldwide shortage. And if you want to really impress your neighbours, try growing elephant garlic (Allium ampeloprasum), the giant, milder-tasting relative of the true garlic, with bulbs that reach the size of an adultâs clenched fist.
The first step, before planting any of these crops, is to carefully sort through the sets/cloves, discarding any that are shrivelled, bruised or damaged, as well as any that already show signs of growth. Poor quality sets/cloves like these will never produce a crop of any size and may even bring disease (Brian and Meeda strongly suspect that this is exactly how onion white rot first found its way into the OPWâs walled garden). For the same reason, only use sets/cloves that have been certified disease-free (donât be tempted, for example, to plant garlic bought in a supermarket).
Try to choose their planting position in the garden with care, remembering that these crops will be taking up space until early or mid-summer of next year. When deciding quantities, also keep in mind the fact that unlike the summer maincrop varieties, autumn onions donât store well. So only grow enough to fill that hungry 6-8 week gap of mid-summer, before the maincrop themselves are ready for harvesting. Autumn-planted shallots and garlic will keep far longer (up to six months), so grow as many of these as you need.
When it comes to planting, it pays to have a dibber, a tape measure, two small sticks and a good length of string ready, because if thereâs any crop that shows up the sloppy gardener (tut, tut), itâs most members of the allium family â perhaps the only exceptions being the ornamental alliums and chives. For whatever reason, the rest beg for perfectly straight lines and an orderly planting style â not just for ease of maintenance (lines are much easier to hoe) but also because, somehow or other, a crooked row of onions or garlic always looks wrong.
Recommendations as regards spacing and planting depth vary wildly. For autumn onion sets, either plant in rows (4â/10cm between sets and 10-12â/25-30cm between rows) or in blocks (7-8â/18-20cm apart each way), root-end down (important for all bulbous plants) and at a depth where just the tip of the set appears above ground. For Eschalote grise, plant at a similar depth but approximately 9-10â/23-25cm apart â you can expect an average yield of 15/20 shallots per set. The advice from the award-winning website of The Garlic Farm (thegarlicfarm.co.uk) is to plant the individual cloves of hard-necked garlic varieties such as Purple Heritage Moldovan, Lautrec Wight, Chesnok Wight Aquila Wight 6â/15cm apart, with 18â/45cm between rows and at a depth where the tip of the bulb is covered by about 1â/2.5cm of soil. For elephant garlic, the recommendations are almost exactly the same, but increase the spacing from 6â/15cm to 12â/30cm.
Remember also that both the true garlic and elephant garlic will grow well in pots, using a good quality compost and a pot at least 8â/20cm deep. Keep them well-watered and then leave them outdoors, as all garlic needs a lengthy period of cold to âbulb upâ.
Feed with a general fertiliser in March to encourage fat healthy bulbs, and you should be able to start harvesting by early next summer. Yes, next summer . . . itâs a nice thing to keep in mind during the wintry days ahead.
The OPWâs Victorian walled kitchen garden is in the grounds of the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, beside the Phoenix Park Cafe and Ashtown Castle. The gardens are open daily from 10am to 4pm
Next week Urban Farmer looks at growing crops in polytunnels
Fionnuala Fallon is a garden designer and writer
WHAT TO: sow, plant and do now
[b]Sow: /b broad beans, hardy peas, field bean green manure (Under cover) some CCA leaves
Plant: (Outdoors) Garlic, autumn onion and shallot sets, rhubarb sets.
Do: Continue harvesting storing, clear, weed and manure beds, order fruit trees
Good organic garlic is incredibly expensive to buy, another reason to grow it. TRE - I donât actually do much weeding, I have most of the veggie beds mulched with sugarcane mulch and the soil is prime stuff, with all the compost and manure in it. I discovered a free source of horse manure at the local racetrack recently.
Lads, did you get your garlic / onions etc in before the inclement weather set? How will the snow etc affect growing conditions?
I got a few rows planted about two weeks ago but Iâd be fairly concerned though at this stage that the frost may have come to soon and the garlic didnât get a chance to establish itself. Once this thaws I have another few sets to put down, so all may not be lost yet. I believe you can plant them post winter as well but it generally yields to far smaller heads, as itâs the cold weather which encourages the bulbs to swell.
Dungeon with this thread please.
I wouldnât hold much hope for the small few I planted, the ground is frozen solid. I had covered the box they were in with straw to keep the frost off but that got blown away.
Hopefully itâll work out lads.
Some advice for when the ground softens up from the IT, has some information on where to get free compost from Dublin CC:
Mucking about with manure is a gardening must
Getting a handle on fertilisers: above, a handful of leafmould.Photograph: Richard JohnstonFionnuala Fallon
URBAN FARMER: Well-fed soil gives healthy crops but which food is best?
âFEED the soil, not the plantâ has always been the cardinal rule of organic gardening, in the belief that healthy soil produces crops that are both healthy and health-enhancing. The only problem with this, as OPW gardeners Meeda Downey and Brian Quinn have discovered, is that itâs all too easy to run out of provisions, especially when youâre feeding the ever-hungry maw of an intensively-cultivated, two-and-a-half acre walled kitchen garden.
Thus, having spent much of November toiling away on the gardenâs enormous, double herbaceous border (cutting back, dividing and weeding), the OPW gardeners have now used up what remained of their year-old hoard of well-rotted farmyard manure, which was spread as a thick, soil-enriching mulch along the full length and width of the flower beds.
The OPW gardeners used cow manure, which is rich in both nutrients and organic matter but is difficult to work with, demanding strong arms and a sturdy back. âItâs very heavy to fork and you have to break up the clods as you go along, which takes a bit of effort. But at least itâs nice warm work,â says Brian cheerily.
Over the next six months, and without any further ânice warm workâ on Meeda or Brianâs part (such as digging or forking it in), this rich layer of organic matter will gradually become incorporated into the soil, protecting and improving both its structure and fertility levels.
The result should be a magnificently healthy and colourful herbaceous border. The downside, however, is that the gardeners have now got almost nothing left to mulch the many fruit and vegetable beds in the garden.
âWe didnât really have much of a choice â the border needed manuring badly,â explains Meeda resignedly. âAnd weâve been promised more manure early next spring, so at least the rest of the garden will get some then.â
But what makes the shortage of farmyard manure especially worrying for the OPW gardeners is the fact that theyâd already decided not to grow any green manures this autumn, which now leaves the soil in some parts of the walled garden without any form of winter protection.
âWeâve grown a lot of different green manures over the past few years, but not this autumn,â Meeda says firmly. âOne reason is the difficulty we had, because of this yearâs very late and very cold spring, in digging any green manures back into the soil in time for them to rot down before the growing season began. The thing is, by the time the ground was any way workable, it was already too late in the season. We just couldnât afford to wait and lose another six weeks.
âThe other problem was the particular green manure that we used, an Italian rye mix that came strongly recommended. It turned into a really annoying weed, growing right through the box hedging and appearing everywhere, so that we spent the whole summer pulling it out. So we decided that this autumn weâd give green manures a miss.â
But even without farmyard manure and green manures, there are plenty of alternatives for the OPW gardeners to consider, including horse and poultry manure, garden compost, leaf mould, spent mushroom compost, and even straw or hay. If required, other possible soil feeds could also include wood ash (for potash), rock phosphate (for phosporous), or even fish, blood and bone meal (both nitrogen and phosporous). Other enterprising gardeners have even used pond mud, while many a seaside garden has been enriched by a thick mulch of seaweed, scavenged from beaches where itâs washed up after a storm (just remember that you should ask permission from the relevant authority before taking it).
In fact, according to Jonathan Bell and Mervyn Watson, the authors of A History of Irish Farming 1750-1950, Irish gardeners have a long history of being resourceful when it comes to the business of feeding and improving their soils. The authors write that, âclay and earth, dug elsewhere, were . . . commonly spread on cultivated land to increase fertility.
âThe soil was sometimes spread straight onto the ground, or might first be mixed with farmyard manure. Arthur Young records frequent instances of earth being taken from ditches to form composts, by both landlords and small farmersâ.
These same Irish gardeners, Bell and Watson, go on to explain, used seaweed in abundance, even sometimes going so far as to establish âkelp bedsâ, marked out by stones and extending far out to sea.
They also used Peruvian guano, the name for the collected droppings of seabirds such as the Guanay Cormorant and the Peruvian Booby, and a popular fertiliser that was once commonly available. Yet another traditional Irish soil enricher, according to Bell and Watson, was shell marl, a thick, lime-rich clay which was dredged up from the bottom of both the Shannon and Waterford harbours.
Back in 21st-century Ireland, the author and organic vegetable gardening expert Klaus Laitenberger swears by another type of soil enricher, this time a composted mix of waste produced by a Donegal waste-recycling company called Envirogrind (envirogrindltd.com).
Made from a mix of garden waste, food waste and fish waste (all organic-only) and with added grit for porosity, itâs a wonderful soil-conditioner with a perfect balance of plant nutrients.
According to Envirogrindâs managing director, Martin Eves, the feedback from both private gardeners and landscapers has been phenomenal. At only âŹ25 per cubic metre, itâs also very affordable in comparison to equivalent garden-centre bagged products.
Envirogrind is one of several similar companies around the country that are listed on the website of CRĂ, the composting association of Ireland (cre.ie).
Alternatively, Dublin gardeners will be interested to know that Dublin City Council occasionally supplies some of the smaller Bring Centres around the city with compost produced from its brown bin collection service. Details of availability are posted on the website (the latest news section) of Dublin Waste, dublinwaste.ie .
Whichever one of these mulches you do decide to use (and a mixture of several is often the best solution), between now and next spring is the ideal time to spread them (ideally during a milder spell of weather).
Added to even the poorest, most compacted and undernourished of soils, they have a transformative effect â the ground becomes workable, any subsequent weeds become pullable and the yield of fruit and vegetables quickly increases.
So perhaps that famous saying could be reworked with GYO in mind. âFeed the soil to feed the gardenerâ â it has a nice ring to it, donât you think?
** The OPWâs Victorian walled kitchen garden is in the grounds of the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, beside the Phoenix Park CafĂ© and Ashtown Castle. The gardens are open daily from 10am to 4pm
** Next week Urban Farmer in Property will cover allotments
** Fionnuala Fallon is a garden designer and writer
WHAT TO: sow, plant and do now
Sow (under cover, with heat of 55-60ÂșF/13-16ÂșC to then plant in polytunnel once germinated) : kale (Ragged Jack), peas (Kelvedon Wonder), Swiss chard, spinach.
Plant : (in polytunnels): kale, peas (Kelvedon Wonder), Swiss chard, spinach, garlic.
Do : Clear, weed and mulch/manure beds when possible, spread and peg down black polythene sheeting to kill perennial weeds on previously uncultivated ground, order fruit trees.
First of the spuds and carrots gone in this weekend.
Put in the onion sets a couple of weeks ago and the garlic seems to be coming along nicely.
Howâs the garlic coming along?
I planted two different types and one is coming on much stronger than the other.
I carrots and spuds are flying it but lost a bed broccoli and cabbage to the root fly. The peas are only middling as well.
Garlic breadth.
My spuds are flying it. The garlic died in the frost. All one box I set.
Disappointed to hear that.
What spuds did you plant?
Ive golden wonders and orlas gone in. Iâve another type as well but canât remember the name, something Latin.
I think theyâre Homeguards, not 100% sure as I got them from the neighbour and just fired them into a ridge.
No British Queens? For the year thatâs in it and allâŠ
I wouldnât mind throwing a load of horse shit down on them.
Roosters are the only spud worth talking about, they are a very consistent spud i find.
For mash and roast they are pretty good but for baked or boiled I think the Kerrs Pink are far superior.