Guide to Planting Fall Garlic

One of the last planting tasks for the season is getting garlic in the ground. Garlic needs a cold cycle to perform well and time to set its roots into the ground so it is best planted from mid October to early November.

If you would like to produce your own seed stock and your own eating stock, plan to reserve the top 30% of your harvest for planting. Each pound of garlic can produce between 50-75 heads of garlic, since each clove can produce a full bulb.

Planting Garlic

Pick a sunny day in early - late October, when the soil is still warm. Try to leave enough time before the ground freezes solid for the garlic to set roots. (Garlic can be planted any time before the ground freezes solid, though, ideally 3-6 weeks prior.)

Begin by breaking apart the heads of garlic into cloves. Count the cloves and determine the amount of space you need.  Most hardneck varieties have 50-75 cloves per pound. Garlic prefers full sun, so choose a spot that will get full sun for the spring and early summer. Each clove will be planted at 6" spacing, in rows 12" apart. Weed and work a proper amount of garden space. After cultivating the space, mark the rows. Plant cloves root side down, 2" deep, at least 6" apart, in rows 12" apart. Water and cover with mulch. Your garlic will need to be tended to in the spring, once the ground warms and it begins to grow.

Spring growing conditions and care: Garlic begins to poke through the ground as soon as the soil warms. If you covered your garlic with a thick mulch layer, rake it back to help warm the soil faster.

Garlic prefers rich, weed-free soil and ample water. Beginning in the spring, pull weeds when small, taking care not to damage your garlic when pulling them out. Hardneck varieties produce garlic scapes in the spring. If left on the plant, the scapes will draw energy from the bulb, reducing size and quality. Once the scapes emerge, cut them off immediately to direct the plants' energy into bulb production. The scapes are an edible spring delicacy.

Fertility: Giving your garlic a nutrient boost in the early spring is highly recommended. Garlic performs well with a nitrogen boost in the form of alfalfa meal, or a light side-dress of compost.

Choose your Halloween style

Halloween is a magical night and a perfect time to get into a magical mood and have some fun!

Here are some ideas (and tea pairings!) to get you in the Spirit!

Cozy Home Halloween

Grab a good book or movie and get cozy!

What you need:

A good movie or book: (pick something spooky and magical!) I’m too wimpy for horror myself but there are plenty of options out there.

Movie & Book suggestions: Harry Potter series, Nightmare Before Christmas, The Witches, Hocus Pocus,What We Do in the Shadows and here’s a list of many more! or pick from this list of Halloween reads!

Snacks: Try some healthier Halloween twists on old favorites like these Peanut Butter Chocolate popcorn balls, Maple chili pumpkin seeds or indulge your inner child by getting a bag of mixed trick or treat candies and diving in!

Tea/Cocoa pairing: A mug of Beach Fire Cocoa will complement the salty popcorn and snacks perfectly or stand alone as warm and cozy Halloween treat!

Mushroom Hunt

The fungus is among us!

What you need:

A forested area to explore, hiking shoes, a small harvest bag, a sharp knife and a rain jacket.

Get outside and enjoy all the fall feels in the forest today. One of the creepiest (and most delicious) foods emerging from the underworld in October are mushrooms! Oregon is famous for mushrooms especially abundant in the fall and winter seasons.

My favorite one to hunt around Halloween is the king Bolete, a truly giant mushroom that tastes like steak when cooked. The Oregon forest also has chanterelles, lobster mushrooms, matsutakes and many more! Just make sure you don’t eat anything that you can’t 100% truly identify. When in doubt- toss it out. Because the other scary thing about mushrooms is that some of them can be deadly (for real).

Check out this beginners guide to Mushroom hunting to get you inspired to hit the trail this Halloween!

You can also hike just to enjoy spotting them and perhaps gather some up along with few clumps of spooky mosses and dead branches to make an all natural Halloween decoration for your house or porch!

Evening campfire would make the perfect ending to your day in the woods. You can roast your mushroom finds or simply enjoy the full moon by the fire white sharing scary stories!

Snacks: Try your hand at these mushroom recipes or warm up after your hike with this savory pumpkin soup topped with mushrooms!

Tea/Cocoa pairing: Hot CHAGAlate is a blend of CHAGA mushroom powder with cinnamon, vanilla bean and rich raw cacao. It will give you plenty of stamina and energy to hike those trails and keep you warmed up and cozy afterwards around the fire.

Mystical Halloween

What you need:

A cup of tea and a saucer. Candles. Sage or Incense. Soothing music.

The veil is thin between the worlds on Halloween- especially under a full moon. If you are feeling mystical then take some time alone this year to tune into your intuition and inner wisdom. Find a quiet spot and set up a sacred space by lighting some candles, burning a little incense and playing soft soothing music (if you prefer).

Then try your hand at the intuitive art of tea leaf reading. Simply add a pinch of tea leaves to a tea cup (a wide mouth classic shaped tea cup works best here) and cover with boiling water. Steep for about 3 minutes then slowly drink the tea while you calm your mind and ask whatever questions you are interested in. When the tea is gone cover the cup with your saucer and tip the cup upside down and then right side up again. The remaining tea leaf in the cup will form shapes and patterns that you can then seek meaning in.

I tried this with my chai tea grounds the other day and I was surprised by how clearly I saw the image of a skull and a trail leading from the bottom of the cup towards the rim (representing a journey from the past to the present). That very day we found out that Brigham’s step brother had passed away in Texas and he bought a ticket to fly out immediately for the memorial (visiting his past in the present!). More tea leaf reading info here.

Snacks: It’s advised to eat lightly before divination to keep the senses open and to eat a good snack afterwards to help ground back into your body. Try these vegan goji berry cacao balls to keep your energy light before hand and this hearty rooted soup to nourish you afterwards.

Tea/Cocoa Pairing: For tea leaf readings it’s best to use black teas. Breakfast Buzz or NeahKahNie Fog are fine choices for a tea leaf reading as the leaves will remains in the cup. For the perfect herbal tea to sip during the day give you a calm and centered energy for divination I recommend Nap & Nourish.

Witches Tea Party

Invite your best Ghouls over!

What you need: Some ghoul friends. Tea cups. Tea. Costumes. Treats.

No trick or treats this year? Then what about a witches tea party instead?

Dress up in your best witches attire and host a little tea party to celebrate Halloween in style. Include some cut up sand”witches”, pumpkin doughnuts, and of course tricks and treats! Hit Goodwill for some tea cups and saucers and you are ready to go!

Got kids home from school? Get them into the fun to by having them help make the decorations, treats and costumes before the guests arrive!

For easy tea party hosting basics check out this guide!

For a kids Halloween tea party with decor printables and recipes check out this site! and this one too

Snacks: Bite sized eyeballs, Graveyard Mouse Cups, Deviled Spider Eggs, Bloody Falafel Fingers

Tea/Cocoa pairing: Try Elderberry Cobbler herbal tea for your witches party. Add ice and sparking water to fizz it up or serve hot with cinnamon sticks. For adults you can also nip in a bit of brandy or whisky for a quick delicious cocktail. Pumpkin chai lattes would also be wonderful treats at this party as well as Blue Enchantmint for the kiddos!

top 5 for the October Garden

It’s the end of the summer harvest season here in Oregon. While fall crops like cabbage, carrots and winter squash are still coming in, it’s a good time to batten down the hatches for the winter.

In the rainy PNW it’s often not the hard frost that will damage the garden but the return of heavy rains, that can mold and rot crops still in the earth. October is a great month to take advantage of the last warm sunny days and prepare for next spring!

My top five for the garden in October:

1. Harvest: This is the month to harvest remaining crops in the field that were spring or summer planted. Get those last zucchinis, pole beans, tomatoes, potatoes, winter squashes, fresh herbs and brassicas out of the field and into dry storage, a freezer or canning jars. Collect and clean any seeds you can from flowers, herbs and non hybrid veggies and place into a dry, cool dark space for storage.

2. Compost: You are going to have lots of debris in the garden as your summer plants die back for fall. Trim back your perennials (like mints and flowers) and pull your annuals up to add them to your compost pile. If you don’t have a compost pile now is a perfect time to make one. You can simply pile things up making sure you layer in some straw or fall leaves to balance out the nitrogen of the decaying garden plants. If you can cover your pile with a tarp or create a 3 sided pallet structure with a simple cover on top that will help your pile to not get overwet by the winter rain. You want the compost to stay moist but not soaking wet so that the microbes that turn your old plants into rich compost have the right working conditions.

3. Cover Crop: Once you have harvested and cleared out your old garden annuals and trimmed your perennials you don’t want to leave the earth bare to the elements. Mother Nature abhors bare soil and will quickly cover any spots left open in a bandage of weeds to protect the ground from rain erosion. If you plant a cover crop you get to beat out weeds, protect your garden soil and also grow nitrogen rich fertilizer that you can use in place next spring! Thanks to the magic of the Nitrogen fixing legume family of plants (peas, vetch, clover, alfalfa) which pull Nitrogen from the air and fix it into the soil on their roots- you can end your growing season by planting a crop that will give back all the nutrients that you took from the garden and get it ready for next spring. Order a cover crop mix for fall sowing (my favorite is red clover, oats and peas) and sprinkle the seeds on your cleared garden beds. Rake in gently and let the fall rains to the rest. In the spring you will get an early show of red clover blossoms which the bees will love and the oats will die back giving you a rich carbon layer to mix with your nitrogen.

4. Plant: It may be the end of the line for some plants but others do much better when started in the fall. This is a great time to plant garlic and spring flowers that need a time of cold stratification for germination (like poppies and love in the mist). It is also one of the best times to plant orchard trees, bushes and other perennials that are cold hardy. The deep watering in they will get over the winter season helps them establish roots while not having the pressure of also having to grow and produce right away. This is also the time to plant spring bulbs like daffodils and crocus for the flowery show they will give you in early spring!

5. Protect: If you are growing late into the season or even year round (as we can on the temperate Oregon coast) it’s a good idea to bring in your more tender plants to give them some kind of cover. If you have south facing windows you can often bring in your basil plants and other herbs/lettuces and keep them going for a few months in the warmth of your house. If you have unheated green house or high tunnel space then pulling in plants to give them cover from the rain and wind helps them survive the winter. I pull in my new lavendar and lemon verbena plants that are in pots and let them grow slowly or die back in protection of my high tunnel hoop houses as they would die from overwatering if I left them in the rain. Row covers can help protect crops in the field from frost but I have found that coastal winds demand that you give them very secure bindings to keep them where you want them! Instead of row covers I mostly cut back what plants I can, pull in what is still growing in pots and plant out what is big enough to survive in the ground and doesn’t mind a deep watering. If you do pull in your plants make sure to water them much less than you normally would. They are not growing and so don’t need water like they do in the spring and summer months. Too much water will cause root rot and death in the winter season.

   Now you have my top 5 tips for the October garden.

   The farmers almanac states that whatever is still in the fields after Halloween is left for dead! Take advantage of the time you still have to get those apples harvested, tomatoes roasted, seeds collected and plants tucked in for winter!

   Happy fall gardening,

   Farmer Ginger

Wild Plant Foraging Videos

Garden videos from North Fork 53

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