Same Bed But WAY Different Results? 3 Steps To Making Your Soil Better

Let's talk about some of the not so Instagram-worthy stuff that can happen in the garden.
This garden looks ROUGH. It was planted in the fall and is still very small and beat up. In the same bed, some other cloves were planted at the same time from the same batch and look much better. What's up with that?
Right off the bat, this bed hasn't received as much attention as other parts of the garden have. The soil is very clay heavy, and it hasn't been amended much. That means there aren't a lot of nutrients here, and the clay can retain water (after it finally soaks it up). That's not great for root crops because they can rot out.
If you're growing garlic in a similar environment and getting similar results, the combo of poor soil, lack of nutrients, and over-watering may be why. So what do you do?
Now that it's the spring, our best bet is to clear these out, amend the bed, and make room for a warm season crop. We can try again in the fall, but these aren't going to bulb up so we need to yank them.
In the same bed, we have some garlic that's doing MUCH better. These are right on track as they're starting to bulb out instead of being small and slimy. Some have received too much water and are cracking (time to make French onion soup!), while others are smaller but look good.
If you're running into issues in your garden, you want to start off with considering all of the things that could be going wrong. Look for signs from your crops that might help you figure out what's going on. Finally, not everything can be fixed right away, but it's important to come up with a plan to continue to improve over time.
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[@dhawk766]

I grow garlic and onion every year here in San Diego and this year I am having rotting issues from all the rain this winter. My garlic did better than the onions because they are in a raised bed with slightly better drainage. But our clay soil really holds onto the water which is normally a blessing with the usual amount of rainfall we get here. I haven’t run my irrigation in the onion bed at all and they are rotting. It just happens some years. Thankfully they still sell onions at the store 😅

[@Anhnongdan_27]

So great ❤❤❤❤❤

[@susanfoy4794]

Thank you. This was really helpful, but talk to me about those tomato cages behind you. They look really sturdy and a great size. Where do you get them? I don't see them on your site.

[@SanDiegoSeedCompany]

Made a video all about them! ua-cam.com/video/4WnEGT70fQw/v-deo.html&lc=UgzDwIEUpF_IlM7jTe14AaABAg

[@kurtrohlfing5850]

Artichokes will be huge for the space, and sunflowers will stop other things from growing there, so either option is not great for the current location.

[@HerbBeers]

I have clay and garlic does great

[@stephaniehanuman-dale6279]

I live about an hour south of San Francisco along the coast zone 9b/10a Should I plant long day or short day onions? Fall planting or spring?

[@SanDiegoSeedCompany]

South of the 38th parallel is short day, north of it is long day.

[@deedeenvegas]

Awesome video. This helps a lot.

[@KennyG233]

To many ads

[@SanDiegoSeedCompany]

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