Garlic

Now is the perfect time to plant garlic for overwintering. It is a tough member of the onion tribe and a fairly reliable cropper as long as the ground is not too heavy. Dirty Nails has been planting his garlic cloves this week. It is a pretty straightforward task, and as with most veg the preparation is all important. He cleans the bed completely of weeds, and gives it a thorough dusting with dry wood ash. This is dug in, and raked to a fine and fluffy tilth. The bed is now ready.

Garlic can be planted at this time of year, or in early spring. Dirty Nails is careful about choosing the right variety for the right time of year. He selects Messidrome and the purple-tinged Germidour for a late autumn sowing, varieties that are bursting to sprout soon if they have not already begun to do so. Other types such as Printador, that don’t show green shoots until March or April, should be planted in the early spring.

Bulbs are prised gently apart, and individual cloves separated. Each one of these will hopefully grow into a complete bulb for harvesting next June or July. Dirty Nails places the cloves on top of the soil in blocks rather than lines, with 5 inches (13 cm) between each one. When all the cloves are in position he firmly plunges them, one at a time, down into the earth, pointed end uppermost, to a depth of 2½ inches (6 cm) and smoothes over. A cold spell immediately after planting is to be hoped for as this stimulates the garlic into dividing and developing strong roots. Shoots should be showing well by New Year. All that is required is to keep weed-free.

Natural History In The Garden: Wall Pellitory

Wall pellitory is a common plant in Dirty Nails’ neighbourhood, jutting out from walls and cracks in stonework. It thrives all over the south west, wherever construction work by humans provides a suitable niche away from its favoured natural cliff and rocky outcrop habitats.

In November wall pellitory is a tufty, straggly plant, with elongated diamond-shaped green leaves borne on reddish stems. In mild weather it may still be flowering, displaying tiny pink blooms in clusters at the junction of leaf and stem. A cousin of the stinging nettle, it is an alternative food source for some of our aristocratic summer butterflies.

Garlic is a powerful little plant, well liked and consumed with great gusto in the Dirty Nails household. Breaking up and planting four or five bulbs now, and again in the spring, is more than enough to give his family of four a home-grown garlic aroma all year round.

Vegetable Snippets: Some Facts About Garlic

Originating in the Middle East, garlic as we know it is descended from wild stock and was developed by selective breeding way, way back long ago. It has been grown in Britain since before 1548 and is used in cooking as a flavour enhancer. Garlic (Allium sativum) is a particularly good foil for onions, tomatoes and ginger.

Endowed with a long and celebrated history in both culinary and medical fields, garlic is considered by many to be a natural tonic on account of the many health promoting virtues with which it is credited.

The potent garlic aroma associated with its consumption occurs when any of the plant cells are damaged. Violation via chopping, crushing or chewing prompts enzymes within the cells into a reaction. This is where the distinctive smell comes from. It is possible that this naturally occurring phenomenon evolved in garlic to counter grazing by herbivorous (plant-eating) animals.

Traditionally, complete bulbs (or heads) of garlic were hung up around doorways and chimney-breasts in the home to ward off evil spirits. Similarly, to keep vampires at bay, a clove or two was kept in a pocket about one’s person.