Garlic!

Last Fall we planted 16 cloves of garlic, and after a long winter, here they are!

We ordered the garlic cloves from a seed company, because it's my understanding that supermarket garlic is treated not to sprout, and may not grow.  Now, supposedly, these little guys are going to grow tall, and sometime in the middle of the summer when the leaves start to turn yellow, we'll pull them and let them dry in the sun for a few weeks.  And then we'll make pesto.  The plan is to save a couple heads of garlic to replant again.  I'm not sure how many heads of garlic we go through in a year, but I wonder if we could grow enough in a reasonable amount of space so that we never have to buy garlic at the grocery store again.

Speaking of garden space, the plan is to double ours this year.  (That's our outline, and all the grass within represents the digging we have to do.) Last year was our first attempt at a vegetable garden, and now we're going to double it. It's probably a little ambitious, but there are so many things I want to grow.  Last year we had an easy time with cucumbers and zucchini and herbs.  Our tomatoes did poorly, and I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the minimal effort we applied, so I've got to read up more on that.  And we had one red pepper plant that produced a few green peppers, but it got too cold before they had a chance to turn red.  This year we're adding butternut squash, carrots, shallots, beets, arugula, spinach, leeks and potatoes to the list.  No problem!