180

I just got the natural gas bill, and it said that this last month was on average 5 degrees colder than last year. I think the weather gods saw that and tried to make up for it all at once. In a bizarre change of weather, we suddenly have sun and VERY warm temps for this time of year. 78 degrees!

I went out to plant my garlic in a sweatshirt, but with all the digging and loosening of the soil, I turned into a puddle. So I changed into a 3/4 length sleeve knit shirt, and was working in the shade, and still was too hot. I finally had to dig out a t-shirt.

So with all the changing going on, and in and out of the house, I only got half the garlic planted. It's still 40 cloves, but I still need to plant the softneck garlic.

I love garlic. I grow Music, which is a potent, hardneck variety, and Inchelium Red, which is the softneck. I tried to plant them on tight spacings last year, but they didn't do so well. This year I dug in lots of compost, and planted 10 across my 4-foot bed, and made each row 9 inches apart. I'm going to mulch them with a lawn clipping/shredded leaf mix this year since we're supposed to have a cold winter. Hopefully that will also keep the weeds at bay, as well.

Music keeps forever in my garage, and I braid the softneck, which lasts until spring hanging in my kitchen. I haven't purchased garlic in at least five years.



Thanks to those who have posted comments! I'm not ignoring you. Things have been a little hectic lately.

My friends and I have been trying to solve the Emerald City Search. We're not having much luck with it. Every place we've checked out has yielded nothing. Waaaaayyyyy too much time spent puzzling it out. I finally had to give it a break yesterday as the laundry was piled high, the house a disaster, and bread needed to be made. After a marathon day, I felt I could take it a little easy today, but tomorrow will be another busy one.