The garlic scapes have been taunting us – nearly 4 feet tall and waving in the wind – but today we finally dug most of our garlic. Farmer Grant tells us it’s actually better to cut the scapes off, use them and let the plant put more energy into garlic-making, but we were away a couple of weeks and the scapes escaped, so we let them be.

But here’s some indication of the difference in soil quality. I believe all of this garlic is called Music, seed we bought from Derek Roller at Echollective Farm nearby. But we planted some under sheet mulching without tilling, though there was some gravel in the soil due to the proximity to the patio. The rest we planted in plowed clay soil that we mulched heavily. The plowed, mulched garlic did significantly better. 

Gravel 1 – Garlic 0.

No surprise there…but I don’t think the gravel was the only factor. Important consideration when sheet mulching:  it takes a few years for soil to improve.