Little City Gardens

We planted garlic under the waning gibbous moon. According to biodynamic agricultural philosophy and traditional folk wisdom, crops that develop their edible parts underground should be planted at this time when moonlight is decreasing. This includes root crops like carrots, beets, radishes, turnips, garlic and others.

We purchased seven beautiful varieties of certified disease-free garlic. Although buying seed garlic (as opposed to just using garlic from the grocery store) is expensive, it’s well worth it because sometimes store bought garlic harbors plant diseases. I had the experience last year of planting a large crop that all succumbed to a fungal disease commonly called garlic rust. It didn’t destroy the garlic, but it did greatly impede the development of large bulbs and was enough of a bummer to warrant being cautious in the future. Also once you have it in a garden, the only way to get rid of it is to use fungicides or to avoid planting anything in the allium family (including onions, leeks, shallots) for two to three years.

For experimentation sake, we chose a mix of softneck (allium sativum) and hardneck garlic (allium ophioscorodon). Most garlic sold commercially is softneck because it stores much better. But there are so many beautiful varieties of hardneck garlic available, and hardneck produces an edible stalk in the spring called a scape, so we wanted to give these varieties a try.