Spagetti Sauce, Artichoke Dip, Leg of Lamb

None would be the same without garlic.

Vicktory Farm and Gardens' Kitchen uses garlic everyday and nearly every meal, we haven't tried it in oatmeal yet, but give us some time and we most likely will.

Garlic planting happened a week or so ago and was really supposed to happen in October but all will be okay. It just needs to get in a get going before it got to cold to mess with the dirt.

This is one of five raised beds that now have garlic in them. In three of the beds the garlic was planted in patches of eighteen and will be inter planted with veggies that appreciate hanging out with a strong partner. Off to the right in this picture you see one of my favorite tools that I had Dirt make me for my particular gardening method.

Here is a close up, basically it is eighteen dowel pieces, place at equi-distance from each other, into a plywood piece, that is reinforced with one by two and handles were fashioned for it. All it really does is mark the spots where I need to plant. The spacing is a little farther apart than what is recommended for garlic but I'm trying to adjust somethings to get a little larger bulb.

I've gardened the raised bed method since before Dirt and I were married. Part of the whole raised bed method is placing things equi-distance from each other not in plain rows. When Dirt made this tool for me it really helped. But just like measuring cups you shouldn't have just one size, you need one for each spacing size. Or else you just do it with a swing of your thumb and fingers and readjust a little when you notice your pattern is off a slight bit. The years before Dirt built my prototype for all the other spacings, I was very good at knowing the distance for the span between my thumb and each finger. Or how much to bend a finger to adjust it just so to make it an inch closer.

Once I've made the imprints, I come along with my hand claw and use it's handle to make the holes for dropping into the hole. Yes, I could buy a fancy thing called a dibble, but in this case it isn't necessary to have a tool that only does that job.

As you can see the handle works just fine, I marked on the handle how deep in the dirt I have to set it for the garlic.

Planting time is the best substitute for doing squats in the gym! After an afternoon of this my hiny muscles know that they have been used.