The last entry discussed the huge advantages of growing gourmet garlic and provided techniques for planting fall garlic, today I’ll share a few tips for buying the best gourmet garlic seed.

Here in Central Pennsylvania it’s almost time to plant the fall garlic seed that will grow into enormous cloves of delicious gourmet garlic by the middle of next summer. Sure you can plant garlic next spring, but in most areas you’ll get healthier plants, larger cloves, and better results from a fall sowing of this cold hardy root vegetable.

I’m sure you’ve heard about the recent scare involving bagged spinach that was contaminated with the E. coli bacteria. Many people became seriously ill, health alerts were issued, and fresh spinach completely disappeared from grocery stores, restaurant menus, and salad bars across the United States. While it’s unfortunate that the outbreak occurred and has been linked to an organic produce supplier, a part of the story that goes unnoticed is how an isolated contamination quickly mushroomed to the point of impacting the supply of spinach throughout the entire country.

A previous entry on controlling slugs and snails in the garden focused on trapping these destructive pests, today I wanted to share a few other methods for eliminating slugs and snails from the garden.