I'll never forget my first crop of homegrown garlic. In 1996, my Uncle John, an organic gardener since the word was invented, gave me a handful of pink-tinged heirloom garlic cloves from his Pukekohe garden. But I wasn't into growing veges then - in fact, the backyard of my one-bedroom flat was 97 per cent flowers (two lemon trees and a rosemary bush were the only edible inhabitants). As it's rude to look a gift horse in the mouth, I accepted Uncle John's gift and followed his instructions to the letter. I waited until the shortest day, dug a series of small holes and simply buried a clove, pointy end facing up, in each hole. They all came up, grew magnificently fat and tall, then died down. At the end of summer, I simply dug up the fist-sized bulbs, plaited their stalks and hung them to dry in the carport.
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