Learning to Love the Fail

Last spring I planted a small patch of garlic.  A few things went wrong:

1. The area I planted the garlic had poor drainage
   
   
2. It was a VERY wet year last year
   
   

That being sad, all my garlic died. Or so I thought. This year 3 volunteer garlic shoots came up in my basil patch (last year’s garlic patch).  I was very excited, and let the garlic grow hidden underground. Then the late summer came and the garlic was ready to pick.

It was small to say the least.  This year I have been working on not sweating the small stuff. Last year, I would have been mad, or sad, even uninterested in my failure of a garlic crop.  3 deep breaths, these small garlic bulbs were perfect, in their unique way.  They had a wonderful flavor, and although they did not last me a whole winter (I use garlic in almost EVERYTHING, they didn’t last a week) I enjoyed having my own fresh garlic.  Sometimes it is the little things in the garden that help us with our personal goals.

Below is my small garlic compared to the wonderful garlic from Strawberry Hill Farm, a local farm in our area, their bulbs are almost the size of my palm.