Gardening columnist Diana Wayland offers advice on planting garlic this autumn

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AS Halloween approaches, it is time to plant one of our vegetable crops for next season.

Garlic.

I have grown garlic for a number of years, and with extremely varying success. The first

year I got a marvellous crop of large bulbs with good-sized cloves. But not one bulb had

any outer skin. The next year was a complete failure. Several nondescript years followed,

during which I got several small bulbs that consisted of one single clove.

We have built windbreak screens around every individual bed in the kailyard, and have

added as much organic matter as we can get into the beds while they lie fallow during

winter, to lighten our heavy soil.

This year it seemed to pay off. I got a good overall crop of reasonable size bulbs; still not

the big ones of the first year (I wish I knew what had been in the now long-gone bed we

planted them in!), but far better than the previous years. It seems that the windbreaks, the

organic matter and seaweed fertiliser in greater amounts all helped, as did the more

frequent rainfall, which is always better than watering, no matter how well it is done.

I still got a number of single-clove bulbs. Just rather bigger ones!

The variety I plant is Casablanca, which does well in lower temperatures. However, last

Halloween I bought two ordinary, unknown variety bulbs from a local supermarket. They

have done just as well. In fact, these plants did not die back as Casablanca did in late

July, and were only just going over when I dug them up in August! They gave me some

good bulbs of good-sized cloves which are strongly pink-skinned. The single-clove bulbs

were exclusively Casablanca which, as its name suggests, is white. The pink-skinned

variety is a hard-necked garlic, which I have never grown before. Casablanca is softnecked garlic, which allegedly stores better. My chance now to compare!

Traditionally, Halloween is the time to plant garlic. Three years running I tried sowing it in

spring and every time it was a complete failure. Despite it being a busy time for me, I

always try and plant them on either 31 October or 1 November. Garlic needs a period of

cold, even though here we don’t get as cold as further inland, which is why it is planted as

winter starts. It prefers a moist, light, well-drained soil in a sunny position.

I love garlic. It goes in just about every meal I cook. It aids digestion, is antiseptic,

antibiotic, blood-cleansing, mosquito repellent, and can help stave off colds and flu.

However, some people can have an intolerance to it. Its essential oil, which gives it the

strong flavour, has a high sulphur content, which can disagree with some digestive

systems. Chewing parsley or mint is said to remove the smell of it on one’s breath, but I

have never found it to work well.

Garlic, possibly originally from Asia, has been cultivated by humans for millennia. It was

first recorded by the Sumerians 5,000 years ago. The Romans probably brought it to

Britain.

Garlic’s anti-vampire reputation may originate from its disease-repelling properties; the

vampire believed to have diseased blood. In central Europe, home of vampire folklore ,

“Touch of the Vampire” meant a plague or disease brought on by mosquito bites.

If only it worked against midgies…..

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