Usually I plant garlic in autumn. It’s something that gets the garden up-and-running before spring and I like the scapes that autumn varieties produce. This year, time got the better of me and I’ve resorted to spring clove planting. And I’m even late on that task.
To make up for lack of days in the earth I’m giving my garlic a boost of fertiliser. But not any old bottle of branded slop. This garlic is road-testing the latest trend in nutrient rich nourishment: alpaca poo.
Poo provider, Lou, owner of some friendly looking alpacas*, sent me two bags of ‘Lou’s poo’** last year which, until now, have been sitting on my office desk. It’s testament to their low odour qualities that I forgot they were there (the only off aroma around being a yeasty must from spillage during a late shift beer tasting).
The two bags contain the same dried pooey substance: one in its whole form of nuggety lumps, the other shredded for a faster release of goodness or for dissolving in water to make a liquid fertiliser. According to Lou’s instructions a handful mixed into your compost will nourish the plants with a nutrient rich combo of nitrogen, phospsorus and potassium.
Lots of our Twitter pals have been raving about alpaca poo and I have high hopes for a harvest of glorious garlic bulbs later in the year.
Lou’s Poo is available from TheArchersAtTheLarches.com
This year’s garlic varieties
My Spring garlic bulbs come from The Garlic Farm on the Isle of White. The three varieties that will be gobbling up poo are Solent Wight, Mersley Wight and Picardy Wight.
*Bracken, Annabel, Darcy, Shadow, Caramel and Fidge
**If you’re called Lou, it’s the obvious name for a business. Wonder what someone named Kit would call theirs…
Haven’t heard of alpaca poo until now, so thanks, I’ll look into that. I too missed the autumn garlic window, and now waiting for the monsoon to end to get some in for spring.