Potting on and sowing

Today - as well as the alliums from my sister Blog [the Seed circle one] - I potted on about 24 garlics. I had sown them in a tray because I just hadn't had time to get to the plot, prep a bed and sow these. I have done some in situ but these are supplemental and are from a previous year's crop.

They are now in 3 inch pots and as soon as the roots have grown into decent sized rootballs - I'll put them into their final positions with a bulb planter. They were frozen this morning so that should be enough to get them to form cloves.

I've also sown some random broad beans - 4 different 'end of bag' varieties. Will be kept indoors until this cold snap comes to and end and if they get to 6 inches before then - they will go into root trainers and in a polystyrene box until it warms up a bit and then into the plot. 

This is where 'I don't care what biodynamic day it is' comes into it's own as I have no idea but only had today to do it so it had to be done.

Still CBA to take photos today so here is a pic of my Box Brownie which I will be using this year to take old style photos of stuff

Moon Trial GZ Harvest

Today I dug up and weighed GZ

Sown on Jan 3rd

Harvested on July 3rd

6 months in the soil

Weights prior to sowing:

9, 13, 6, 8, 9

Weights at harvest 

89, 129, 29, 192, 186

Overall increase in weight 1386%

Clove number 2 had split and created 2 completely new and separate bulbs of garlic. Alternatively, a fluke clove found its way in and grew in the exact correct place; as no cloves had disappeared from the rest of the trial. This was the heaviest clove of the original selection of cloves [there were 3 that weighed 13g]. Clove 3 was the smallest of the final bulbs from the last 2 batches of sowings. 

Moon Trail GE Harvest

On the 20th of June I dug up and weighed GE

Sown on Dec 21st

Harvested on June 20th

6 months in the soil

Weights prior to sowing:

9, 4, 7, 10, 6

weights at harvest

166, 256, 151, 197, 144

Overall increase in weight 2954%

Alot of bulking up compared to last month's harvest; interesting that the smallest clove in the whole trial [randomly picked from the 50 cloves in a bag], gave the highest final weight and fattest bulb thus far. 

Moon Trial GC Harvest

I have today dug up and weighed GC

Sown on Nov 15th

Harvested on May 15th

6 months in the soil

Weights prior to sowing:

6, 8, 11, 8, 8

weights at harvest:

103, 121, 128, 102, 138

Overall increase in clove weight 1479%

Ends of garlics starting to yellow; and the cloves getting bigger. 

Transplanting onions and garlic

I sowed some onion seeds last autumn, and they have been in the garden all winter. They are now nice and sturdy, so today I dug them all up, and transplanted them at the lottie. 

There were also a few random garlics that didn't do much last year, so I have left them in the ground all winter and they were also transplanted. A couple of random shallots also went in. 

Quite a few of the beans that were sown last week are now up and running. 

I build another raised bed at the lottie for all this and we have half filled it with soil, home made compost, coffee ground and a sprinkle of epsom salts.