PLANTING GARLIC AND SHALLOTS IN A RAISED BED

Last week I blogged HERE about cleaning out the raised bed garden area.  I knew I wanted to get something into the ground and decided to do garlic and shallots, two of our favorite ingredients to cook with.  This is the time of year to plant them (I'm a couple weeks late but our weather allows that, ha).

They take about five to six months to mature.

4x4 raised bed

So I turned the soil again and got the bed ready for planting.  I had already added some organic compost last weekend.  This is also a well draining bed, which is good, because neither vegetable likes "wet feet". 

Seed shallots

I got our seed shallots and seed garlic a couple weekends ago at a local feed store.  I bought one variety of shallots and three varieties of garlic.  

You should never use garlic and/or shallots you buy at the grocery because A) you never really know what variety they are, B) they could introduce pathogens into your soil that you don't want in your soil, and C) they are probably chemically treated to prevent sprouting while in the store.  You sure don't want any of that happening in your garden.

Seed garlic

Remember, they will usually come as whole heads of garlic, so break them up into individual cloves, that is what you will plant.  Same with shallots, though sometimes they are just one large bulb with nothing to divide, that's OK just plant that one whole.  You don't need to peel off the paper husk, just plant them as they are after you separate them.

Planting shallots in raised bed

Then I dug some holes in the soil, and since I utilize the square foot gardening method as a guideline for our raised beds, the suggested spacing is four per square.  I actually planted the garlic a little closer together than the shallots, so we'll see how it all comes out next Spring.

Plant them 'root side down' and about 3 inches deep.

Raised bed garden ready to mulch

Lastly, I just covered it all up with soil, and watered it down well.  2nd Family is going to bring some hay down and put over the top as mulch for us so we should be good to go for the Winter to see what happens.  We've been getting rain about once a week, so that should keep them watered.

Fingers crossed that about six months from now we'll be rolling in garlic and shallots.  If it works, this bed will be our dedicated garlic and shallot raised bed each season.  Baby steps!