The last gardening task

I had no meetings or appointments on Wednesday afternoon last week. I had planned to have Wednesday afternoon off the entire semester, but it has turned out to be a rare occurrence. It was lucky that I did have some time this week. I rushed home to plant the garlic, the last act of the gardening year. Hilda and I were unable to find a time when we could work together. She had a doctor appointment Wednesday afternoon, but I didn’t want to wait for the weekend because it was supposed to be cold. The ground would be frozen.

Terry and Hilda had done all the hard work while I was at school. Terry rototilled, and Hilda put down four strips of landscape cloth to make three rows for garlic. She had also separated the bulbs of garlic and put the individual cloves in separate paper bags by variety. We decided not to replant our own garlic this year, what with all the flooding. It was right muddy when we harvested; we feared that it was harboring fungi.

I ordered three hardneck varieties from the Seed Savers Exchange, Chesnok Red, German Extra Hardy, and Music. When the garlic arrived, I read in the accompanying literature that the softneck varieties are better keepers. Oh well. We were rather late in the game. Most of the softnecks were sold out.

All I had to do was make holes with a dibble and stick the cloves in the ground. The Chesnok Red filled one row. The German Extra Hardy cloves were huge, and there weren’t many of them. I only had enough for half a row. Music filled 2/3 of a row. Well. I wasn’t going to leave rows empty. I went downstairs, got some of the garlic from this year and planted that. We’ll see how that goes.

I spread straw over the rows. Terry helped me put the row cover over, which was good because the day was blustery. When we had the earth staples in, Terry suggested we move some 2x4’s over to weigh down the landscape cloth in between the rows. With the garlic all tucked in and snug in bed, we could breathe the sigh of relief. We are ready for winter.

The garlic, snug under a bed of straw

Good thing, too, because winter arrived Friday morning. I took some pictures before I left for work.

The fifth oak

The apple tree still has its leaves to catch the snow

The pines looking all Currier and Ives

It was 18°F Saturday morning. Winter comes with pluses and minuses. I love settling in to braising, baking, and roasting; breaking out the fuzzy sweatshirts, turtlenecks, and comfy wool sweaters. And then there’s when the wind hurts your face when you step outside. I don’t like that so much. At least we can look forward to Christmas. After that, we just have to hunker down until spring.