The ground is still wet, but the weather has warmed up and what do we discover in the garden? The garlic has sprouted! The little green sprouts are six inches high. Of course, plenty of weeds are also up. Last fall, in a light drizzle and muddy soil, we planted garlic. Hope was our business plan, since the long October rains had drenched the soil and the rains kept coming. One clove of garlic planted produces one head of garlic — eight months later, if Mother Nature cooperates.

2009 was a banner year for our garlic crop; we harvested 1,200 heads of garlic and sold 800 garlic heads. Our few remaining garlic heads in our basement are soft and not very tasty, but we did manage to eat plenty of fresh garlic last year.

If we get plenty of sunshine, we hope to harvest this garlic crop around the fourth of July.