Spring planting garlic

[svalli]

I knew that it will be a lot of work to get all garlic plants planted into the ground, but I had no idea how much it will actually be. Everything would be easier, if we lived next to the field, but we have about 1.5 hour drive to get there. I had already planted all the plants, which I can fit in my raised beds here in the city and given some to friends, but there was still about 600 plants waiting to get into ground. We had to fold the back seats in our SUV to fit all the plants into the vehicle. The field had to be harrowed before I could start planting, so I could not start preparing the bed until around 2 in the afternoon. It was difficult to get the plastic stay down in the high north wind, so I had to spend some time collecting rocks. I had one 45 minute break to make dinner and eat around 6 P.M. and then I continued digging the dirt through the holes in the plastic and getting the plants with their long roots into the ground. I was going to quit a nine in the evening with over 100 plants still in the pots, but my DH had finished his work for the day came to help. He wants to do everything with machines, so he made ridges in the soil with the potato planter and we planted the remaining plants on the ridge next to the row of fall planted garlic. I was so tired that I did not resist on his idea, even this means that the row without plastic mulch needs weeding during the summer. We finished watering and collecting all supplies and tools from the field at 10:15 P.M (sun sets now after 11 P.M.).

We got back home after midnight and I was barely able to get out from car with my aching muscles and stiff joints. I will definitely not do pre-sprouting and spring planting at this scale in the future. It is OK for the ones, which I can plant in the raised beds, but hundreds of plants planted into the field is total insanity to do by hand in one day. From now on the field is just for fall planting.

Sari