The first order of business was moving the chicken coop and run. The fence and coop were dismantled and moved to the adjacent section of the field to begin preparing some new ground for us. This was relatively simple although I wouldn't want to do this every week. The only real difficult part was keeping the chickens contained while their world was disrupted.
Moving the coop:
The old location left some prime well-prepared soil to plant the garlic in:
The soil had first to be tilled and prepared into rows:
That was it for the day. Had to get ready for the Alabama vs LSU game. As it turned out there was more crap played during the game than left by the chickens. Anyway, back to the garlic. The heirloom garlic bulbs from earlier in the year were broken up into cloves. The large cloves were selected for planting. Typically a large clove produces a large bulb and vice versa. Lot's of garlic left over! The cloves were planted 2 inches deep 6 inches apart. The cloves go in with the root end facing down (apologies for pointing out the obvious). A stick marked up for 2 inches and 6 inches works well.
The garlic will winter in the ground and be ready next Spring. The only step left is cover with about 6 inches of mulch. We decided on fallen leaves since there are plenty available.
With the recent passing of the tough Alabama Immigration law, casual farm laborers from our neighbors to the South are in short supply. Being forced to look closer to home the following is a picture of an undocumented Anglo-Appalachian American (son) raking leaves last weekend. This pile cost me $30!
These leaves came in really handy today:
Nearly 200 cloves went in on this planting. Look forward to some giant heirloom garlic bulbs in the Spring!
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