What to grow in garlic bed between harvest/replanting

[Vanisle_BC]

It's nearly the end of July. Garlic is harvested, bed weeded & cleaned up. What useful food crop could I grow & harvest in that bed - by direct seeding - before planting next year's garlic there in October?

If I had planned ahead I would have seedlings ready for transplanting now. I didn't & don't, but if I do next year what would you suggest as good candidates, planted out to grow to maturity between mid-July and October?

Weather can be very hot here, especially August. This summer so far, hot & dry all the way.

[pepperhead212]

I usually solarize my garlic/shallot row several weeks after harvest, then when it's time to plant fall greens, that's what goes into it.

[applestar]

I planted extra hot pepper seedlings and sowed beets in my harvested garlic bed.

Also think bush beans might be a possibility. I've been sowing them where cabbage and potatoes had been harvested, and also sowed edamame in a bed where early maturing Guatemalan Blue squash have finished up.

[imafan26]

You could grow a green manure crop. It will keep the weeds down and add biomass to the soil. Most of the green manure crops will be tilled in after about 6 weeks. Buckwheat, cowpeas are the ones I usually use. Cowpeas, if inoculated, can add some nitrogen for the next crop. Green manures are tilled in just as they start to flower.

[rainbowgardener]

A lot of beans can be done in a couple months.

[Taiji]

Just a quick question about inoculation. I used some several yrs. ago, and wondered if it's necessary to do it again every year, or does it stay in the soil from then on?

[applestar]

It's more effective to inoculate every year if you don't keep up planting same type of legumes in the same area. I don't think the rhizo bacteria can survive in the soil without a host plant.

[applestar]

It was discussed in THIS thread Subject: pea inoculant - how long does it last?

...I wonder what the correct condition that imafan mentioned is for rhizo bacteria to persist? Maybe she will have additional, more recent info for us....

[imafan26]

Some soils were naturally rich in rhizobacteria so they could still form nodules without inoculation. I have inoculated repeatedly the soil in the herb garden and it has never been able to maintain the numbers. The pH is 7.8 unless I continously add sulfur then I can bring it down to 7.2. The soil drains poorly because it is in a low area and there are still pieces from an asphalt parking lot still buried beneath the garden. The soil is fungal dominant. Without inoculation, legumes will only produce 0-4 nodules (mostly zero), essentially none. I have even tried successive legumes without being able to maintain the rhizobacteria.

If you inoculate your legumes and you are able to get successive crops to form nodules, then you may have enough of the native bacteria to not need inoculation. I know some gardeners here with soils that naturally are able to make nodules. I even got a nitrogen fixing nodule on a bean I had not inoculated that was in a pot of reused potting soil.

If you are growing a green manure for nitrogen fixation it is still better to use the inoculant since the number of nitrogen fixing nodules on the roots increase a lot.

[jal_ut]

I was going to suggest some bush green beans.
If you can get the seed to germinate some lettuce might be good. Leafy types. I have no luck with head lettuces here.
Radishes?

[Vanisle_BC]

Thanks for all the comments & suggestions.

Eventually I decided just to sow most of the bed in green manure (Crimson Clover; does that ever make a thick, lush carpet!)

At one end though, I seeded some Raab broccoli, something I've never grown before. It claims to mature in 45 days which could have given me a harvest "between garlics." No such luck. Just have stunted spindly little plants, one of which is actually making a flower. I'm blaming our hot weather.

Meantime I've decided to rotate my beds, so not replant garlic in the same place; which solves the dilemma of what to grow between one garlic crop garlic and the next.