Protecting or Mulching Garlic...

With the cold winter months finally here upon us, if you haven't thought about protecting all of that garlic that you planted in the fall, you might want to consider it now.  If you are in the Southern United States or in any zone above about 6, you shouldn't have to worry about this too much.  Hopefully if you are buried under a few feet of snow, you thought about it earlier!  The idea here is to protect the garlic from getting too cold, and add a few extra nutrients to the soil while you are at it.  Exposure to the cold will surely kill your garlic, and since we have had such a warm (I am using that word loosely) winter, I haven't worried too much about it.  I will tell you that I have now mulched the garlic three times.  The 103 mile-per-hour winds have blown the mulch off once, and another wind storm took off my second attempt at mulching!  You can imagine my frustration.  Third time seems to be a charm, knock on wood, so far it has stayed in place for almost a month!

Straw, leaves, compost, mulch are all things that you can use to protect your garlic.  I used straw from the chicken coop (you can use new straw as well) and leaves to cover the garlic.  The trick with this is that you don't want to put anything over the garlic that would hinder growth in the spring.  Whatever you choose, make sure that it is light enough for the plants to push through, and that it won't mess up your soil pH.  Things like wood shavings may look like good insulation, but they leach nitrogen out of the soil leaving none for your plants.  This is why I used a combination of a few different things.  I thought that the used chicken straw would add some chicken poop fertilizer to the pile (be careful using chicken poop...it can be hot and burn your plants...I only used it because it would have all winter to break down into the soil) and the leaves would add some nitrogen to the mix, plus they break down nicely.  I did put the leaves into a large composting bag and let them break down just a bit before spreading.  The bag really did the trick, the leaves were steaming when we spread them, and I think getting them partially broken down will make Spring tilling a bit easier!

 As long as the wind doesn't blow, this will do the trick until spring!  Darn wind...if it would just snow and bury my mulch, I wouldn't have to worry about the wind so much!

HAPPY MULCHING!!!