Sunday, December 20, 2009

GARLIC'S UP...

Those tiny little cloves never cease to amaze me. I " mudded" them in starting in mid October.

"Mudding" is a term we used in W Va to describe plantin' 'taters in March or just before poor sledding season begins in earnest. For some prehistoric reason "Squire" Hines , unofficial mayor of Hooker Holler, said taters were better if planted by March 10 "up the holler",

Armed with a Gravley walk behind garden tractor, a rake and shovel, I planted three rows of taters in mud under snow squally conditions wondering why the hell I listened to an old man in a country store.

The tater didn't "turn" out, I had to dig 'em, but they were NICE taters, big, crisp, and snow white inside...a very satisfiying labor.

I've been a garlic farmer for about 5 years now, and we've been under drought conditions for that period...planting in dust. This year I planted in the mud, as we had the seccond wettest October in history of forecasting in Georgia.


I really didn't know what was gonna' happen. Common knowlege (ie gossip) had it that nothing short of a major volcano or earthquake could interrupt the garlic on it's mission to get out of the ground.

I watched it rain... and rain... and rain... and get colder. I didn't mulch, thinking the ground would dry quicker after a rain. Everyday I went to the tractor shed and watched.

This morning, Sunday, Dec 20th there were hundreds of tiny white spikes about an inch tall, looking like porcupine quills, sticking out of the ground.

Garlics Up! ALL RIGHT.

Thanks, Squire, May someone else profit from that small tidbit of information...

2 comments:

  1. Yay Daddy! You're a darn fine prehistoric garlic man.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ...Not to mention sauve, deboner, and as likely to pass the SAT's as a Cave Bear. Prehistory has it's benefits.

    ReplyDelete

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