Divisive garlic

It hasn’t rained for a couple weeks. The heat is setting in. The less irrigated corners of the garden are getting crunchy underfoot. The rain barrel is even running low. This week is going to be hotter. Summer weather in July, what a concept. No wonder the garlic cloves I stuck in the ground last fall decided it was time to dry up and call themselves mature.

So I decided to dig them up. Although, this is a full month earlier than when I harvested last year, the garlic leaves had turned brown and laid themselves flat on the ground. The corner where I planted 20 slivers of garlic cloves yielded — seven small heads of garlic. Two of them look like they were considering sending up mini-me mini-heads of garlic on top. Or maybe they were toying with the idea of sending up scapes and flowering.

In any case, “20 + time = 7” doesn’t exactly add up.  They certainly didn’t multiply. Either a lot of garlic cloves got eaten, or most of those slivers weren’t worth planting. But then, none of those slivers were worth eating. Maybe it doesn’t add up, but I say I came out ahead.