For weeks I was fretting about how best to safeguard the gloves of garlic I was about to plant, since winters here can get brutal and weeds attack as soon as the snow melts.
If you've ever planted something in a garden you probably know this type of worry. There's a special sort of pain and disappointment that comes when a critter digs up your annuals over night or a groundhog feasts on your entire bed of carrots. Hence my laser focus on finding a way to protect my garlic.
I looked into buying straw but strangely, it's much pricier than I thought and I'd be covering a 6 foot by 50 foot space.
The solution came as I was trekking across the lawn, and I heard my neighbour start up their leaf blower. We're out in the country on acreage, so blowing leaves is a futile effort unless it's just to clear a walkway. But there they were, trying to move a mountain of red, yellow, and orange leaves so their grass was completely free of them. I shook my head at the foolishness.
Why even bother when the leaves do such a great job of blanketing the ground, giving a home to tiny insects over winter, and break down in their own time to improve the soil?
And there it was. The answer to my garlic protection issue. Every year leaves cover the ground, providing an insulating layer between the earth and the snow. Couldn't the same be true for protecting my garlic over winter? Yes, yes it could.
You'd think I'd solved one of life's great mysteries by the pride and excitement I felt as I gathered bucket after bucket of leaves, laid them in a thick layer on top of the newly planted garlic, and secured it with a thin row cover (pictured above).
See, the most effective answer is often the most simple, and yet it's so easy to jump to a more complicated option right away. I watch a lot of YouTube gardening tutorials, and I've learned so much from them. But it's really easy to fall into the trap of believing you need fancy raised garden beds, expensive soil, and complicated gadgets to make it all work.
My little garlic adventure has been a big eye-opener, encouraging me to look to nature first and foremost for solutions. Leaves are free, readily available, and they break down to help nutrify the soil. Taking cues from nature rather than struggling against them, may be one of the easiest ways to curate a more intentional way of being.
I'll be keeping my eyes open for more lessons as I spend time outside in the beautiful fall weather. How about you?