Homegrown garlic has a wonderfully robust, fresh, and complex flavor that's hard to match - and fall is the perfect time to plant it.
While garlic can also be planted in spring as soon as the ground is workable, fall planting is generally recommended. It gives the cloves time to establish roots before winter dormancy, resulting in well-developed bulbs ready for harvest the following summer. Every year, I plant a generous crop of garlic from Keene Garlic, a family-owned farm in Wisconsin that specializes in certified organic and naturally grown gourmet varieties for both eating and planting. Garlic is not only a great ingredient in the kitchen, but it offers a number of health benefits. And knowing that the garlic is also grown right here at my farm makes it even more rewarding.
Enjoy these photos.
I have been planting Keene Garlic for several years and am always so pleased with their growth and taste. Here’s my box containing several different varieties for planting ready to be shipped from Keene to my farm. (Photo courtesy Keene Garlic)
This is Keene. Every one of Keene’s bulbs goes through an inspection process. The entire staff at Keene is trained to check for good quality and feel. Keene is holding one of his favorite varieties – Chesnok Red, which has great flavor and is easy to grow. (Photo courtesy Keene Garlic)
Keene Garlic ships across the entire United States. There are two main types of garlic that can be grown – hardneck and softneck. Hardneck garlic grows best in colder climates, while softneck garlic thrives in warmer areas such as California and Texas. (Photo courtesy Keene Garlic)
Once it is at my farm, the garlic is prepared for planting. Each bulb is carefully broken to separate all the cloves – the largest cloves for planting and the smaller ones for eating. These cloves were placed in a special bioactive liquid garlic soak the day before to help produce larger, healthier bulbs and improve nutrient absorption.
Most of the beds in my half-acre garden are already cleaned for the cold season, but it’s a great place to plant the garlic, where it can get full sun.
The designated bed is sprinkled with fertilizer specially made for garlic and alliums.
Ryan uses a Bed Preparation Rake from Johnny’s Selected Seeds to create furrows in the soil. Hard plastic red tubes slide onto selected teeth of the rake to mark the rows.
Jute twine is secured at one end to ensure the rows are perfectly straight. This is a guide for all the other rows in the bed. Ryan already determined how many rows would fit in this bed and how many garlic cloves would be planted in each row.
Remember the terminology – a head of garlic and a bulb of garlic refer to the entire structure that contains multiple individual segments.
And each of those segments is called a clove. A typical garlic bulb contains about 10 to 12 cloves, but this can vary depending on the size and variety. Some larger varieties may have only four cloves, while smaller bulbs can have up to 15 cloves.
Ryan positions each clove. When planting multiple rows of garlic, be sure the rows are at least one-foot apart.
It is also important to give each clove enough room to grow and develop. They should be planted at least several inches from each other.
Here are several rows well spaced for planting.
To make the holes for planting garlic, Norman uses a dibble or a dibber. The T-grip on the dibber allows the planter to apply enough pressure to create a consistent depth for each hole.
Norman drops a seed garlic clove into the hole. It is planted with the pointed end faced up. The majority of garlic in the US is planted from mid-October through November before the ground freezes.
Cloves should be pushed down at least three inches deep.
Ryan and Norman work in tandem – as one places the seed garlic in the row, the other plants it. If the soil in the bed is well cultivated, this should be a fast and easy process.
Norman also makes sure to leave one row uncovered, so Ryan knows the proper placement of each clove.
After planting all the cloves, Ryan backfills the rows.
Next, the entire bed is topped with a new layer of soil.
I use Miracle-Gro Organic Raised Bed and Garden Soil.
Once the new soil is spread across the bed, Ryan rakes the bed again, so it is level and smooth.
This garlic will be ready to harvest mid-July to August. And that’s it – we wait until next year to pick. If you’ve never grown your own garlic, give it a try.
The autumn color show continues at my farm, where the landscape is now taking on the rich, warm hues of late fall.
As the days grow shorter and temperatures begin to cool, deciduous trees undergo a remarkable seasonal transformation. The production of chlorophyll slows and eventually stops, allowing the leaves to turn from green to beautiful shades of red, yellow, orange, and gold. These same seasonal changes also trigger abscission, the natural process by which a layer of cells forms at the base of each leaf stem, gradually weakening its connection to the branch until it falls.
Enjoy these photos of the beautiful late-season colors at my farm.
Here at my farm, the peak of fall color has pretty much ended, but look at the gorgeous show. By this time in early November, the trees show off a warm, earthy palette of russet, bronze, tan, and gold. On the left is my sycamore tree, the symbol of my farm. It has already lost most of its leaves for the season.
Also lining a section of the carriage road in this upper hay field are several American larch trees, Larix laricina, also called tamarack. I planted all of them here at the farm. Larches are one of the few coniferous trees to change colors and lose their needles in the fall.
Larch trees turn a brilliant golden‑yellow before dropping all its needles.
Along another side of the carriage road are the changing leaves of the Kousa dogwoods. Kousa dogwoods are small, ornamental flowering trees known for their star-shaped white bracts and red berry-like fruit.
Right now, they are showing off this rich burgundy to bold red foliage.
This linden allée extends from my long pergola down to my chicken coops. These lindens can be seen from so many areas of the farm.
Lindens, Tilia, are medium to large shade trees that are easy to maintain and beautiful in any landscape. They turn pale green to pale yellow in autumn.
My outdoor grounds crew has begun the tedious task of blowing all the fallen leaves.
Here’s Pasang blowing leaves around my Boxwood Allée.
My crew has long used STIHL’s strong backpack blowers. The 800 Magnum series is the most powerful – efficiently removing leaves, clippings, and other debris from large areas.
Here are the late-season leaves of the American Beech. American beech is native to the eastern United States and Canada. American beech trees turn golden yellow to warm bronze in fall, with many leaves fading to pale tan and often remaining on the branches through winter.
And here is a view of my majestic pin oaks. The pin oak allée is the first allée guests see when entering my farm. These trees are tall and impressive. Pin oaks, Quercus palustris, are popular landscape trees because they are fast-growing and easy to maintain.
In fall, rare weeping European hornbeams, Carpinus betulus ‘Pendula’, display a striking golden-yellow foliage that contrasts beautifully with their graceful, arching branches.
Across from my winding pergola is a row of towering bald cypress, Taxodium distichum – a deciduous conifer. These trees change colors to rusty orange, copper, bronze, cinnamon brown, and sometimes fiery orange before shedding the needles.
Ginkgos lose most of their leaves at the same time because of the way their petioles, known as stems, work. As the weather gets colder, the petioles get what’s called scars to protect the tree from disease after the leaves fall. For most trees, that happens on a leaf-by-leaf basis. But in the case of the ginkgo, all the scars form mysteriously on the same day.
Down behind my chickens I have a grove of dawn redwoods, Metasequoia. These trees are also changing color. In autumn, these dawn redwood needles are different shades of golden-brown.
Dawn redwoods, Metasequoia, have feathery, fine-textured needles that are opposite each other and approximately a half-inch long. Don’t confuse them with the bald cypress needles, which grow alternately.
What’s even more interesting are the trunks of the Metasequoia. They are fluted — meaning they have deep vertical grooves or ridges running up the main stems. These trunks also have broad, flaring shoulders that provide stability at the base.
Beneath the Metasequoia are my hostas, which typically turn shades of yellow or gold, with foliage gradually softening and collapsing as they enter dormancy.
This is one of my many Eastern redbud trees. In fall, redbud trees, Cercis canadensis, turn bright golden‑yellow, sometimes with orange or red tones.
Their big heart‑shaped leaves shift as chlorophyll breaks down. Here, one can see the changing colors on the leaves.
Here’s an autumn leaf from the sweetgum tree, Liquidambar styraciflua. The sweetgum’s glossy green, star-shaped leaves turn bold shades of gold, red, and orange in fall.
And, look closely beneath the towering maples at this newer allée of pin oaks I planted several years ago – it’s doing great. 104 pin oaks are lined up along both sides of this carriage road at the far end of my farm. In time, these trees will grow to 60 or 70 feet. Soon, after all the leaves have changed and fallen, the trees will be bare and dormant for the winter. This is when they conserve energy by stopping active growth while roots remain active, absorbing water and nutrients from the soil, and preparing for new growth come spring.
It’s always exciting to watch the gardens, groves, and allées throughout my farm continue to evolve, mature, and expand.
Over the past couple of weeks, my gardeners and outdoor grounds crew have been busy adding new trees to the landscape. Most recently, the team planted nine crabapple trees, varieties of Malus ‘Adams’ and Malus ‘Royal Raindrops,’ from our friends at Select Horticulture, Inc. in nearby Pound Ridge, New York. The trees were planted in a grassy area just off one of my carriage roads, not far from what I call my “Christmas Tree Field,” where I’ve planted hundreds of evergreens, including Fraser firs, Canaan firs, Norway spruces, blue spruces, and several other varieties. This open location will give the new crabapples plenty of room to establish themselves, grow, and flourish.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Here are three of the nine crabapple trees placed near the locations where they will be planted. I select the locations for all my trees. It is important to take into consideration the mature size of the tree to ensure it has enough room to develop and thrive.
The trees are from Select Horticulture, Inc. – a great source for large, interesting, and beautifully maintained specimen trees and shrubs.
This crabapple, Malus ‘Royal Rainbow,’ will grow up to about 20 feet tall and 12 to 20 feet wide.
Crabapples typically produce fruit in late summer to early fall. The red berries attract many birds. These trees are filled with berries.
The red berries of Malus ‘Royal Rainbow’ are small, round crabapple fruits, typically under an inch in diameter, with a bright red to scarlet color.
The leaves are deep purple to reddish‑purple and are about three inches long.
The rule of thumb when planting is to dig the hole two times as wide as the root ball and no deeper than the bottom of the root ball. Each hole is manually smoothed out and prepared to ensure it is sized appropriately. Digging a wide planting hole helps to provide the best opportunity for roots to expand into its new growing environment.
The protective wrapping and any wire or rope are removed from the root ball. If left untouched, these wrapping materials could reduce the ability of a tree’s roots to grow out into the surrounding soil. Some gardeners leave them in the ground, but I prefer to remove everything, so there is nothing blocking the root growth.
The wire cage is removed before the tree is placed into the hole. Some of the top materials are left on until the tree is lowered, so the root ball remains intact.
Pasang and Alex slowly roll the root ball into position. Only hold it by the root ball and the base of the trunk – never by its branches, which could easily break.
Pasang removes any remaining wrapping materials from the root ball once the tree is in the designated hole.
As it is removed, all the protective cages and coverings are placed by each tree, so we are sure it was taken off.
All the trees look great, but I always ask the crew to position plantings with the best side facing the walking path or area where guests see them most. Alex uses a piece of wood to maneuver the tree into place.
The entire area is sprinkled with fertilizer. The crew uses an organic all purpose plant food from Miracle-Gro.
Once in place, the rest of the hole is backfilled.
The crew also adds nutrient rich compost made right here at my farm.
A crucial step in growing healthy trees is to plant them at the proper depth. Planting a tree too deep can kill it. Plant it only at its flare – the bulge just above the root system where the roots begin to branch away from the trunk.
Then the area is raked neat and tidy.
Crabapple trees thrive in full sun, with at least six to eight hours of direct sunlight daily. These trees will flourish in this space.
Here are six of the nine planted on one side – another three are planted across the carriage road. And they were all planted just in time. We are expecting to get lots of rain over the weekend – everything at the farm will get a good watering.
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