Garlic Planting

This fall we created a new garden for the garlic, a raised bed garden made from stones and filled with the rich forest soil that had been further enhanced by contributions from a series of goats, horses, donkeys and a bull!  In this particular place on the Land the bedrock of Mother Earth literally is right at the surface and it would be very challenging to attempt to grow plants directly upon the rocky soil here.  By creating a raised bed we give the plants a foot of rich fluffy soil that creates ideal growing conditions.  The soil will be able to retain more water because of its high humus content and will be able to drain off any excess water because it is raised which will help the garlic from getting mold conditions while growing if we happen to have a year of an abundance of rain.  There are many places upon the Earth where either due to natural conditions (such as our bedrock area of the Land) or due to the abuse of the land through conventional agricultural practices which compact the soil, the soil is very hard and depleted.  Raised beds can transform these conditions immediately and allow us to grow a greater abundance of vegetables in a smaller space, which saves water and is easier to keep tended!

We have an assortment of garlic (hardneck, softneck and elephant) and some shallots ready to plant.

Above one clove of elephant garlic is as big as Anani's palm!  These are huge cloves, and there are only four cloves per garlic plant and they tend to have a milder flavor than regular garlic.  Garlic is planted in the fall, it begins its growth and then overwinters through ice, snow, frozen ground, to then emerge in the spring, grow throughout the Spring and is ready for harvest in the summer.  Garlic is a powerful medicinal plant, excellent for boosting the immune system.  The mere fact that it not only survives but flourishes through the cold conditions of winter is reflected in its medicinal power!  We utilize it crushed with honey or olive oil and taken by the teaspoon, or made into a garlic tea for colds and flus during the winter.  It is a natural antibiotic.  It is of course also a awesome addition to every meal!  We love to roast it directly on the grill in the summer!

We plant the garlic deep enough for about 2 inches of soil to cover its growing tip, then as the weather gets cooler we add a thick layer of mulch (leaves or straw) on top of the soil to further protect and feed the garlic.  The sticks are to label the different varieties for the purposes of discovering which garlics prefer our soil and weather conditions.  As we continue to select the best of our garlic crop for future plantings we naturally guide the garlic to flourish in our unique conditions.  This is the benefit of saving your own seed or in this case saving your own clove.  It is the very best of the garlic harvest that gets planted for the next year because we want to continue to improve the crop and if we would only plant the mediocre garlic we would be guiding the garlic in a mediocre direction.  There is a spiritual tool or truth to this simple process of choosing the garlic for the next year's harvest!

Anani loves to be involved  in planting all things, but the garlic is especially easy for children because the cloves are big and are easy to handle.  She also discovers that when planting garlic you do not take off the husk like you do when you cook, and that garlic requires patience, in fact almost a whole year of patience!  Whereas arugula and other greens will emerge within days and be harvestable within weeks!  This is a way for her to learn the natural rhythm of the foods she eats, and the rhythm of life and death and the seemingly contradictory elements of being able to plant garlic at at time when everything else is being harvested.  She is seeing that even within a cycle of "death" meaning winter, some things thrive and begin their process of life during this very season of "death".  

Anani is seeing that the Garlic that is harvested is "reincarnating" as we place its clove within the Earth, and that it then sends up a shoot, fills out its root bulb and becomes a full garlic plant once again.  She also sees this with the seeds from the tobacco, the vegetable seeds, and she sees this occurring naturally and through our action to collect and plant seeds.  She sees how every year tomatoes, borage flowers, calendula flowers, holy basil, and other unexpected plants come up because of the seeds they threw down the year before which have re-incarnated once again in the most unexpected of places as the wind or a bird or bee or even an animal that ingests the seed such as a fox takes a seed and drops it in a more distant place.  She sees that tobacco grows by the Sacred Fire from the seeds of the Tobacco that was offered ceremonially to the fire the year before.  This occurs more and more frequently as we enhance the fertility of the soil and bring in a diversity of crops and herbs to the Land.  We have naturalized plants upon the land that simply were not there when we first arrived.  Sweet Annie grows all over the field now, Amaranth grows everywhere, cilantro throws its seeds everywhere and tomatoes come up in every place where we have ever planted them.  This year in our tree nursery tomatoes came up from two years ago!   Holy basil (Tulsi) also came up and it turns out that holy basil is very very medicinal and makes a tea that is slightly spicy and delicious!  All the medicinal herbs can and are utilized for bilongos, cargas, and other Medicinal purposes.  

Plants are vital to us as spiritual-physical warriors!  At a time when the diversity of plants upon the earth are being attacked, at a time when the use of plants medicinally is also being attacked, at a time when the health of the people of the planet is also under severe attack, the plants are our life line!  We love and honor the plants upon the land, we are always bringing more plants to the land and reaching out to our Mother Earth in the spirit of Reconciliation through placing our hands, our sweat and our love upon her to grow an abundance of vegetables, herbs, fruits, nuts, flowers!  We don't bother to roll up our sleeves anymore, we cut the sleeves right off!  Not only is this process healing for our Spirits, our Souls and our Relationship with out Mother Earth, with the Ancestors, with the Spirits of the Earth, but it is also deeply satisfying!