Everything is out of the garden now, including the raspberries we planted three years ago. They grew like they were on steroids, but never produced a berry. Such a disappointment.

We tilled the dirt to get ready for the last job before winter: planting the garlic. Today we will separated our heads of garlic into cloves (they do not need to be peeled) and plant 1,000 of the biggest cloves. (We’ll just roast and eat the smaller cloves!) Always make sure that the garlic is planted root down, so that the sprout doesn’t grow in the wrong direction! Also, we plant each clove 12 inches apart from the next one; this extra space allows room for larger heads to grow.

This year we’re planting garlic from three sources: saving back the best of the garlic we grew, garlic we purchased from Bobba-Mike’s Garlic Farm, and garlic from Harmony Valley Farm in southern Wisconsin. We visited this beautiful farm this summer thoroughly enjoyed meeting the owner, Richard, as he took us on a tour of his amazing production of 100 acres growing certified organic vegetables, many of which are sold to Whole Foods. Recently his farm suffered from a devastating flood.

All of the garlic we are growing is the hard neck Red German variety. We will cover it with straw for the winter. The garlic will sprout before winter, but is always hardy. During the next six months, we will eat our storage vegetables from this summer: garlic, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, plus the treasures that we froze: homegrown tomato sauce and pie cherries.