Artifact 1

Cheryl Hoskinson
Biology 163
Instructor Wendy Connelly
Garden Dairy
August 26, 2014

The Experiment of the Cultivated Garlic

The experiment our group tried to do was to grow cultivated garlic in midsummer when
garlic is usually planted in late fall to early winter sometime between November and February
when the soil temperature should be somewhere along the lines of 40- 50 degrees Fahrenheit. We
had a few factors against us growing garlic this time of year. Then with the school destroying the
learning garden we had to wait until the raised beds were completed to begin to grow our
projects. To make things worse we all ended up with compost rather than soil to plant our crops.
We had a few adjustments we had to make the first lesson we learned in that when
planting garlic make sure the ground is completely moist not semi-moist. We did start our garlic
from cloves and they were all pointed upwards, however; we probably did not plant them far
enough into the soil because in my research I read that the depth of the compost or soil should be
about a foot. Also we planted the cloves to close together because they should be about 6-8
inches apart. Some were alright and some were not.
We continued to water the plants on a continuous basis which was a good thing, and we
did some life to the plant. We ended up having some really nice leaf patterns with no flowers, so
despite the hot summer we had the plant did produce life. When Shelly moved a couple of the

plants we ended up losing two of the plants, but that is not too bad. Also our plant ended up
being shaded by the tomato plant that our classmates were growing.
We ended up with 17 out of nineteen shoots ranging from 1-16 inches in height. We never
got to taste the garlic because it is still in its growth cycle. The major thing that needs to be done
differently is that the garlic needs to be planted in the fall not the summer. The planting material
could be soil not compost. The planting material could be moister. What we did right is we
produced life from a clove of garlic. That is awesome.