Monday was a holiday with glorious weather, a perfect day to plant garlic. We had problems with garlic mites, and each clove was painstakingly peeled in order to ensure that only the best seed went into the ground.
We planted both Music and Phillips, 48 cloves of each. Originally from Fedco seed, these hardneck garlic are now in their fourth generation.
This year, we dropped the German Extra Hardy and planted 12 cloves of the Rossa di Sulmona in their place. This Italian hardneck is originally from Abruzzo, and known for their sweet taste and distinctive pink wrappers.
Once the cloves were planted, the garlic bed was give a cover of leaf mulch. Our last planting of the season was now done.
A good day’s work rewarded by one of nature’s light shows.
Diary of a Tomato 
I’ve harvested about half my garlic so far and its been a bit hit and miss, some good but some a bit undersized. I think it got a touch of rust and perhaps that impacted on bulb development. I still have soft neck in the ground – I’ll be interested to see if that is any better. Hope yours does well.
I love getting the garlic bed planted up each fall. You know that they will be the first things to appear in the early spring and they always reward us with such a great harvest. Your bed looks particularly ready for winter with it’s heavy blanket of fall leaves.
I have a garlic with beautiful pink wrappers given to me by an old Ukranian gentleman decades ago and I am still growing. No idea about the variety but it is a good keeper, looks like your Rossa di Sulmona..
I love the last picture. Especially how the low tunnels are on hinges. Brilliant! How do you anchor them down?
They’re hinges from the hardware store, screwed in to attach the frames to the raised bed. When we want to move the frames, we just unscrew to detach them from the raised bed.
I have some garlic that was brought back from France,called Ail Rose de Latrec. Also Ail Rose de Violet. Gorgeous!!!! I LOVE garlic!