I've been wanting to make beds for awhile now, and with lumber prices down finally I picked up stuff to make quite a few for next year. The main focus was getting one filled and ready to try planting garlic in this fall. I ordered various types hopefully well suited to my zone from the garlic store, and have been patiently waiting there arrival for awhile now.

We picked up 3 yards of potting soil this morning and got the first bed filled. I have lumber for 4 more, (3x12' --14.5" tall), I'm excited to try using the rest of them for beans and perhaps some cool weather crops early in the spring. It will be nice to not have to wait for the ground to dry out in order to till.

Looking good, Binford!

Beautiful beds are you sure you want to junk them up with a bunch of plants- just kidding!
I'll plant some garlic when a local favorite store gets them in, loose, per pound or per bulb, just a couple.

I have a few empty beds that I would love to put to use durring the winter. This seems perfect for me. How do I go about planting garlic? Do I literally plant bulbs from the supermarket, or am I sourcing seeds from a distributor?

Local garden centers may sell prepackaged bags of garlic, or loose garlic. Look to your state universities for extension service advice. Heres mine and yours should not be much different

https://extension.umd.edu/reso...

It will be in the bed all winter and maybe through June. So you cant grow anything else there in spring. But can grow some thing after like bush beans. Or leafy greens or brassica for fall.

Sally! I have never heard of university extension services. They seem like incredibly useful resources. Thank you so much for the direction. This is exactly the type of guidance that I was hoping for.

Thank you again ☺️

Welcome to NGA, @GrowItToCookIt

I think Cornell has the extension services in NY - they absolutely are a wonderful resource!

GrowItToCookIt said:I have a few empty beds that I would love to put to use durring the winter. This seems perfect for me. How do I go about planting garlic? Do I literally plant bulbs from the supermarket, or am I sourcing seeds from a distributor?

From what I've gathered during my searches, "grocery store" garlic is far too dried and aged to be good growing stock.

Mine should be arriving any day now, looking forward to trying it!

I got my local garlic and planted, this is on the early end of time for my location. The bulk garlic heads this place got were kind of shriveled but I got about seven cloves per head at $1.79 a head.

Almost have 4 beds ready now!

Woo, my garlic has finally shipped. Looks like I'll be planting it this weekend. Still need to decide what to mulch it with.

Yay!
And I found a. Sprout from one of my cloves planted about 17 days ago.

Sally, is that a good thing? (I'm pretty sure the winter here would kill any sprouts and the bulb would have to start over... but I've never had mine start sprouting before things froze up - and I know you're in a much different climate!)

Sandy, I think it is normal, and desired, our winters are milder than yours.

Nice!

Hopefully mine get started the same before the weather turns cold cold.

sallyg said: Sandy, I think it is normal, and desired, our winters are milder than yours.

Yes, pretty sure you are right about that!

I started out purchasing 4 heads of locally grown garlic, broke the heads into cloves and planted them in 2020 and now I have about 160 cloves. Hey it's November! Better get them in quick before the ground freezes. Time flies. Growing garlic is fun because it easily plants at a time of year when you just want to get a little more gardening in before the snow flies. Mine is German red I believe. Medium sized cloves. About 8 per head. 2020 cloves were ready to pick early July. Fun crop!

"Fun crop!"

Good idea to buy the local grown ( sold for eating?) garlic.
And this year I think I found just the right spot, where I won't be looking at them in May thinking.. 'what was I thinking?? I want to plant XX here right now.''

160? wow!

I wound up almost completely filling a 3x12' raised bed with the cloves I bought- 4 different varieties. Will be neat to see how it does!