It's been mild all week again; but from today, it looks like temperatures are dropping to single figures. The change in the weather was heralded by a band of heavy rain this afternoon, coinciding almost exactly with my visit to the Hill.
I can take or leave most jobs at the moment - the clearing up doesn't have to be done all at once - but I did want to get the garlic planted. I keep a few bulbs back to replant each year, but this year has not been a good year for it for me, and the bulbs have been noticeably smaller that usual.
I don't know whether that is because we had a dry May and June when the bulbs are meant to be swelling, or perhaps because I didn't plant them until last December, a few weeks later than I usually do. Or maybe it was just a rubbish year for garlic.
So after a bit of weeding in the pouring rain, cutting the asparagus down, and filling the raspberry bed with a deep layer of leaves, I took the biggest of the garlic that I had from this summer, and after forking over half a bed (where the courgettes had been) I split them and planted the cloves.
Besides getting very wet, once I'd finished it did strike me that I probably should have mixed in some sort of feed before planting - I'll have to do it afterwards now.
Hopefully when it is not raining.
Oh you've made me feel ~so~ much better, thank you. Two reasons - one is that you hadn't already got your garlic in, so, phew, I'm not totally too late this year, and secondly is the reminder that the clearing up doesn't all have to be done at once.
ReplyDeleteLots of thanks. Hope the squishie package arrived .....
Yet Bob Flowerdew said on GQT that it is now too late to plant garlic - take no notice!
DeleteWow, just noticed you are back in blogland, so I think maybe I should start updating mine as well, though I'm still getting over the holiday. Just want to be back there. I'll read your last post later, but it seems to have been a strange year for growing in the UK all round, with the some things not ripening although you had a bit more sun than usual. I'll see what happens here this summer, though I think it is going to be dry and hot, but we did have a mild frost 2 days ago, weird.
ReplyDeleteTake care.
I've enjoyed reading your travels in the UK - must be odd going back to a different season!
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