Planting root crops

I planted five root crops today. In my own section of the garden, I planted two rows each of garlic, carrots, and radishes. In Mom and Dad's section, I planted two rows each of beets and rainbow carrot mix.

The garlic I bought as three heads, from Lowe's. The directions on the package were rather useless, so I just guessed: I divided the heads into cloves, and planted each clove individually.

My carrots were a stubby variety, for rocky soils. The soil is pretty good in my garden, but I certainly wasn't planning on passing it through a fine mesh as Crockett recommends for root crops like carrots and parsnips; and the soil is relatively clay-y as well, which Michael Pollen suggested could be a challenge for carrots to push through.

The beet package was much more helpful than the garlic one; apparently each beet 'seed' can actually be several seeds! I need to read up on this more.

Before planting, I dug through the soil and took out weeds. The north section -- where my garlic, carrots, and radishes went -- had quite a few crabgrass roots pushing horizontally through it. My neighbors to the north are not terribly fastidious about weeding, unfortunately, so there's a crabgrass colony right on the other side of the shared fence. They'll keep growing all summer, so I'll just do my best to kill the blades as they grow through the soil.

The soil was good and light, moist. I worked in almost two cubic feet of composted cow manure, which I'd bought at Agway a few days ago. It's good soil and good seeds; now we just need to add warmth, sunlight, and some rain!