Success! (for now at least)

Previous impatient trips to check on progress of the garlic bulbs have been met with bare soil, so I was somewhat dubious that anything would happen.

On one such visit over Christmas, I found pawprints, and a hole dug in the middle of my garlic patch. So I duly fixed up some posts and chicken wire, to keep out whatever it was that had visited ("got a rabbit problem, sir?" the shop assistant quizzed. "Cheaper to shoot the rabbits, sir," he said, when he saw the price of the wire I was buying). I do feel special, that out of the whole enormous allotment site of over 120 plots, this little creature chose to visit mine. I may well fence off my whole plot soon, as my experienced neighbour has done, rather than mess about fencing off each little bit. It may be more work at first but should be worth it in the long run. Still, fence up; no garlic.

But this week was different. I popped down to the site laden with bags of fresh horse manure, free from a local paddock. The sun was, unusually, out from behind the clouds, and as I walked down the slippery track I thought I caught a glimpse of a fresh green stalk through the wire- could it be true? I daren't look directly at it! I scurried past and dumped down the bag of shi- I mean, manure, with my back to the garlic bed. Then I snapped round quickly to catch it unawares, and - nothing. No- wait- a trick of the light! Hurrah! virtually every bulb has started to grow!



I can't help being excited, even though I haven't harvested a single thing yet.

Moog thinks: "We're going to stink, if we eat all that garlic."