Planting Garlic.

[henry]

Short video of a fast garlic planter. Last day of planting at my brothers farm.
http://www.henrycaron.com/Garlic-Videos/i-D33Fgvt/A

[Father'sDaughter]

Originally Posted by henry

Short video of a fast garlic planter. Last day of planting at my brothers farm.
http://www.henrycaron.com/Garlic-Videos/i-D33Fgvt/A

My back aches just from watching that!

Is there someone going ahead making holes and dropping the cloves, or does she have to do it all?

[henry]

We use a garlic row maker that we pull with the tractor. The clove are dropped on the beds close to the holes so the are easy to pick up and plant. At 68 I am too stiff so plant down on one knee and less the half the speed.
https://photos.smugmug.com/Garlic/Bo...20marker-L.jpg

Originally Posted by Father'sDaughter

My back aches just from watching that!

Is there someone going ahead making holes and dropping the cloves, or does she have to do it all?

[Worth1]

My back is killing me.

Worth

[henry]

Rum helps me make it through the garlic season pain killer of choice.

Originally Posted by Worth1

My back is killing me.

Worth

[bower]

We have a rolling dibbler at the farm - two hands to pull it on either side of the row. But it really only marks the hole placement and for half of the holes, so the whole thing is done again by hand to the right depth afterwards. But of course, it's only around 200-250 ft of row for a mixed vegetable CSA... I'm not fast (at anything it seems) but my back hardly bothers me for that.
Hand planting scaled waaay up yes indeed, rum sounds like a good idea/
Every year I forget how much work it is to prep the garlic beds.
I am so relieved by the time it comes to stick cloves in a hole.
The tiller didn't do a great job at the farm this year (ultra weedy pumpkin patch) so there was a lot of fork, shovel and rake to get it ready.
In my own garden, the soil is poor and the beds are not deep so a lot of additions and amendment required. No wheelbarrow so still lugging around the infamous horse manure in buckets and digging it in with the fork etc... . Only half done after two days, it's enough to make you wish for larger scales and machines of any kind.
One thing I've noticed is that, at my age, I get out of shape in no time flat. Six weeks without any field work, everything aches the day after.
Henry, how many days does it take to plant the garlic at your farm?

[henry]

Originally Posted by bower

We have a rolling dibbler at the farm - two hands to pull it on either side of the row. But it really only marks the hole placement and for half of the holes, so the whole thing is done again by hand to the right depth afterwards. But of course, it's only around 200-250 ft of row for a mixed vegetable CSA... I'm not fast (at anything it seems) but my back hardly bothers me for that.
Hand planting scaled waaay up yes indeed, rum sounds like a good idea/
Every year I forget how much work it is to prep the garlic beds.
I am so relieved by the time it comes to stick cloves in a hole.
The tiller didn't do a great job at the farm this year (ultra weedy pumpkin patch) so there was a lot of fork, shovel and rake to get it ready.
In my own garden, the soil is poor and the beds are not deep so a lot of additions and amendment required. No wheelbarrow so still lugging around the infamous horse manure in buckets and digging it in with the fork etc... . Only half done after two days, it's enough to make you wish for larger scales and machines of any kind.
One thing I've noticed is that, at my age, I get out of shape in no time flat. Six weeks without any field work, everything aches the day after.
Henry, how many days does it take to plant the garlic at your farm?

We planted just under an acre this year slowing down a bit due to how much time I care to spend weeding :] it took three and a half days to get the garlic in the ground.
We use a spader 8 feet wide to prepare the soil the beds are soft and easy to plant into. My younger brother Len planted more then we did and I helped took about five days, I did mostly stand up work covering the planted garlic with a rake.

[meganp]

I really enjoy watching videos of your farm and have bookmarked your garlic photos, especially the bulbils. Thank you😍

[Father'sDaughter]

Henry, all your photos are beautiful! And after going back and looking at the garlic album, I now see how the row marker works. Thanks for sharing the link to your site!

[ddsack]

Just got done looking at the spring planted Creole garlic photos on your website - and there is not one speck of dirt on anything! There is no way I could ever get mine that clean! Is the lovely girl in the planting video in charge of washing them too?

[henry]

Originally Posted by ddsack

Just got done looking at the spring planted Creole garlic photos on your website - and there is not one speck of dirt on anything! There is no way I could ever get mine that clean! Is the lovely girl in the planting video in charge of washing them too?

Not sure why but dirt comes off Creole roots much easier then most garlic the dirt was blown off the roots after a day of drying, some of the outer wrappers were removed to speed drying which also removed dirt. We are using a leaf blower on the strings of garlic after drying them for just under two weeks to remove most of the dirt from the roots we lay the garlic on plywood sheets still tied together in long strings it removes a lot of dried dirt and speeds cleaning a lot. Always looking for tricks to save time. You need good intact wrappers for the leaf blower to work.

[ddsack]

Now that's an interesting tip! Never would have thought of using a leaf blower! You have a first rate garlic operation.