Starting a Garden in Northern Canada in Late November

drutter (69)in #garden • 2 years ago

A few factors converged this year to make a winter planting possible. One, garlic can be planted late in the fall. Two, I was busy moving in October (and early November), necessitating I push back the work. And three, we are having an unseasonably-warm early winter here in North-Western BC. Because of that, I was able to start my new garden at my new house, while Christmas music played in every nearby store!

There's the back yard. I've never had such a large area to work with. Hopefully that helps compensate for the cooler temperatures and diminished growing season. I hope to produce a good amount of food here.

When we first arrived, I spent a few days watching where the sunlight fell at various times of the day. I'm pretty far North of the equator, so I have to catch every ray possible. I was closer to the Canada/USA border until my recent move. Now I'm up by the Alaskan panhandle:

The first snowfall of the season already came and went, and mild temperatures returned, so a window to get my garlic into the ground appeared.

I decided on putting it along the left side of the yard, up against the fence.

I did about 50 cloves. I had another 100 or so, harvested from my previous back yard in July, but kept those to eat over the winter. Had some tonight, in fact, with a buttery curry sauce and rice noodles.

Each clove was placed in a hole about 3 inches deep. I didn't remove the grass, which made things really easy, because there was no need to fill the holes in afterward - I just replaced the plug, grass-side up. Not removing the grass also saved me a LOT of work.

We'll see how things go when they come up in March. I may regret not digging out the grass (and moss).

Garlic likes cool spring weather, and doesn't need full sun, so I think they'll do well here.

I've grown garlic about 10 times now. I highly recommend it to everyone. It's easy, delicious, extremely healthy, and also beneficial to the garden because it drives away certain pests.