I’ve grown garlic for almost as many years as I’ve lived in Maine. It’s one of those veggies that I consistently have good luck with.

Last October, I planted just shy of 90 cloves in two of my hugelkulture beds where I grew cucumbers and pumpkins earlier in the season. Planting garlic in the hugelkultures was a first. When I harvested this weekend, I ended up with only 75 heads of garlic. The beds didn’t seem disturbed, so I’m not sure what happened to those missing cloves.

Garlic harvest is one of my favorite times of the year in the garden. This year, I was rewarded with BIG garlic. I’m not sure if it was the hugelkulture, or magic chicken/duck poo compost, or the change of scenery, but my garlic like the new growing spot.

The head on the left is typical of what my garden has yielded in the past. Yet this year, at least a third of my harvest looks like the head on the right. Big garlic.

I’m betting my money on the hugelkulture. Little does he know, Paul’s gonna be building me a new, bigger hugelkulture (or hugelbugel as we tend to call them) just for garlic planting this fall.