It has been awhile since my first farming post and thought it time to give you an update. As I am sure you have been sitting on the edge of your seat in anticipation. As you may remember from The First Farming Attempt – Did Someone Say Garlic? we decided to test our capability of working the land with what we have been told is a simple crop to grow…. Garlic. After ordering some garlic seed and doing a family taste test we decided what to plant and see if in fact we had farming blood in us. So in the fall we planted our first crop of garlic, and so began the Garlic Experiment! Maybe you have been following along through the photos I have posted to show you the progress? Well I guess it is time to tell you how the experiment going.

Before I go on, I think I may have to share a little more background on this as to why it is truly an experiment. I am not sure if I informed you, that everything we are doing this year, we are doing from afar. This is the year to get everything ready and in place for the next step in our journey to tranquility. We are in fact traveling back and forth every month to do the renos and manage the garlic experiment. Figuring if we can make the experiment work without much care, then we will definitely be set for when we are here full time. Hence… the experiment.

So in saying that, it was a fairly dry winter this year and I was not sure how the garlic would fair without much moisture. We did finally get snow later in the winter, so when the snow melted all we could do was wait and see. Having never grown garlic before, we were curious what progress we would see on our next trip out and started to get quite concerned about the weeds. What if the weeds choked out the garlic? What if we couldn’t tell the difference between the garlic and the weeds? You are probably laughing at us now. That is fair. But this truly was a question we asked. Remember… city folk. But upon arrival in the spring we realized how silly that was and to our excitement we could see the beautiful growth of garlic. But also to our dismay… we could see the creep of the weeds trying to take over the garlic beds.

Oh darn, back to weeding I go. I actually start having flashbacks of the last weeding experience, frightened to go back out. My body saying ‘please don’t do this to me again’. However, this time was much more manageable, as the weeds had not taken over the entire garden, and the weeds actually pulled quite easily given how dry the soil was. Within one afternoon the garden was cleaned out and it looked great. I have to say I actually really enjoyed it. It was nice working the land and giving space back to the garlic. Now unfortunately my body didn’t enjoy it as much. I have decided that gardening works a whole different muscle group and takes a different toll on the body than I am used to. As I do believe I discovered muscles I didn’t even know I had. I am pretty sure my technique was all wrong. Bending at the hips versus the knees or using knee pads. Confirmation that working behind a desk does not provide much muscle work. Another sign that working the land is much healthier than the rat race and sitting behind a desk. Sadly again, I could barely move for three days later. My body hurt, yelling at me and asking ‘what am I doing?’ Mocking me saying ‘and, you want to do this on a larger scale…. that is hilarious’. But I just yelled back saying I was doing what was necessary to work the muscles and move towards a healthier life style, and eventually it to will see the benefits. I am quite excited as so far this part of the experiment seems to be working!

Now a part of the experiment that has gone awry… the prep of another section of the garden for planting this year. As per our last farming post, we mentioned that weeds invaded the garden and we were unable to plant the entire area we had hoped, therefore we planted where we could and tried to tame the rest. We had read that putting a tarp over a weed infested area of your yard that you would like to transform into a garden, would help kill off the weeds and prep for the next planting. So, we tarped part of the garden in hopes to do exactly that. To our dismay, instead of killing the weeds, it appeared to create a happy little micro climate to promote a smorgasbord of weeds underneath. Like we had created a greenhouse effect instead of a weed death zone. Who knew! Where did we go wrong? Well, it turns out the tarp we used was incorrect. We needed to use regular black weed mat, versus a plastic tarp. So big learning… a tarp is not just a tarp. Go figure. So the black weed mat is what we will try next.

When we return a month later, the weeds again are trying to take claim to the garden. But I will not let them win. I will claim war against those weeds and I will win! Even if it means I cannot move for the next week! I will persevere… they will not take me down. Eventually I will become a weeding machine and they will fear me!

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Another interesting learning through this process… garlic is supposed to be pest resistant and deer are not supposed to like it. So far this has proven to be true, no pests to date and the deer literally walk around the garlic. They do not walk through the garden or attempt to eat any of it. So a note for you and maybe worth a try… plant garlic around your shrubs or plants to prevent deer from eating them?

I have to admit that as we depart to go home this time I am worried, as the forecast is looking really dry and hot. Since we will not be there for a month to water, what will we come back to. Will our experiment fail us? Will there be anything still alive other than weeds? I guess we will soon find out.

On a bit of a sideline, we have made one exciting discovery that does not necessarily help with the garlic, but does help with the overall farming journey. Hold onto your pants for the update on this one… this one will knock you off your feet! In the clearing of the house there is one appliance that we found and have kept… an old washing machine. Now don’t all shout and cheer at the same time… take a moment to take in this excitement and breath. Ok, so you may not be sharing the same level of elation as us on this one, but this is a very important item for farming. As you see we need to start collecting our equipment for working the land and processing what we grow. One item that we will need is a vegetable spinner. And an old washing machine is a perfect vegetable spinner! So the washer has been kept and will be added to the workflow for processing our vegetables. Stay tuned for future farming instalments to see how this appliance will morph its way into our market garden.

Again the learning on this journey does not disappoint, and I feel we continue to grow smarter and wiser. But, I guess the rest of the year will tell us for sure. As we still have to prep more land, tend to our garlic, remove the scapes (more to come on this), harvest the garlic (if we can keep it alive), dry it and sell or use it. Wow… still a lot to accomplish to deem ourselves successful.

If we are, does any one want to try the first batch? Could be pretty exciting to be part of the initial journey and garlic empire. What do you think? Are you in? Sign up before it is too late!

I am feeling inspired as I think this may actually work. Can you see it? Land barons. Farmers extraordinaire. Maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but I am trying to keep things positive. I see another thanksgiving garlic taste test with the family. But this time with our own garlic. Now that would be pretty cool. How many people can say that they have done that!