{"id":2399,"date":"2016-06-20T11:33:30","date_gmt":"2016-06-19T23:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/?p=2399"},"modified":"2016-07-03T15:10:41","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T03:10:41","slug":"keep-calm-and-carry-garlic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/keep-calm-and-carry-garlic\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep Calm and Carry Garlic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well dear Readers, having talked about our\u00a0zombie defense prep<\/a>, we now turn our attention to growing an effective vampire deterrent. You can never be too careful when you’re living out in the wilds of Northland, you know.<\/p>\n

All this to say, I planted garlic last week. It was\u00a0locally grown organic stuff\u00a0I found when we visited\u00a0the Grower’s\u00a0Market<\/a>\u00a0with Mama and Papa<\/a>. The cloves\u00a0were lovely — all plump and crisp, and pink-tinged, just as good New Zealand grown garlic should be. Some we used up in dhal and soup, but I held back a couple of bulbs to plant out.<\/p>\n

\"Here<\/a>

Garlic popping up. I added snail repellant to be on the safe side, although I don’t think snails like garlic.<\/p><\/div>\n

You don’t need to buy special garlic for planting, supermarket garlic is fine, as long as it’s the NZ grown stuff. That far-too-cheap-and-that-alone-should-make-you-suspicious Chinese garlic apparently doesn’t grow well, and has a reputation for spreading viral disease<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Having purchased your garlic, gently break each\u00a0bulb into individual cloves, and plant the fattest\u00a0ones\u00a0pointy end up under 2.5cm soil. My favorite gardening guru Jonathan Spade<\/a> cautions not to push them into the soil as it can damage the heel of the bulb and delay root development. Plant now (traditionally on the shortest day) and harvest on the longest. Next year of course you’ll save a few\u00a0of your own cloves to plant out.<\/p>\n

\"View<\/a>

Veggie garden from the back deck. Garlic bed is out of shot top left beyond the strawberry plants<\/p><\/div>\n

We have trouble growing enough\u00a0garlic to keep up with our\u00a0needs. I planted 22 cloves this time, but I suspect we’ll have run out before the year is up. Then our\u00a0vampire control\u00a0arsenal will be down to silver bullets and crucifixes. Just as well Forbearing Husband bought the\u00a0reloading press<\/a> last year (and I really never thought I’d be saying that, even in jest!).<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well dear Readers, having talked about our\u00a0zombie defense prep, we now turn our attention to growing an effective vampire deterrent. You can never be too careful when you’re living out in the wilds of Northland, you know. All this to… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42,33,43,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autumn","category-gardening","category-mythical-creatures","category-vegetable-garden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2399"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2601,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399\/revisions\/2601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}