When planning your garden, plant the vegetables that you use all the time. Don’t waste space growing eggplant if you only eat it three times a year. Maybe this is the year you should grow garlic. It’s easy, it’s fun and you can use it to make lovely garlic braids to give as gifts.
Depending on where you live, a general rule of thumb is to plant your garlic in the fall, and harvest on the 4th of July. I thought that since I lived in the Florida Tropics, where it never gets cold enough to damage a root crop, I could just plant garlic whenever the heck I felt like it. I was dead wrong.
If you follow these tips on how to grow garlic, you can avoid my rookie mistakes.
How to Grow Garlic: When?
Garlic is a cool weather crop. For the best results, it should be planted in the fall, and given a few weeks to store up some energy before it goes dormant with the cold. Mulching a root crop in the fall is always a good idea, but there are some who’ve had great success without the mulching.
Most successful garlic growers start preparing their garlic beds a couple months before they intend to plant by working the soil until it is loose and adding compost.
How to Grow Garlic: Where?
In the spring, when the ground thaws, garlic loves the sun, the hotter the better. Plant in soil that is good for onions (loamy and free from rocks), with good drainage. Garlic does not like to be wet.
How to Grow Garlic: Softneck or Hardneck?
There are two types of garlic you can grow. Softneck is what you find in the grocery store. It’s easiest to plant, easiest to grow and has the longest shelf life. It can tolerate a wide range of growing conditions and matures earlier than the hardneck type of garlic. Most folks feel that it is a little spicier. The three varieties most available are Silverskin, Artichoke and Turban. If you are interested in making some garlic braids, this is the perfect type of garlic for you.
Hardneck garlic has larger and fewer cloves. It’s papery covering is less dense, which means it doesn’t store as well. There are three common varieties for the home gardener: Purple Stripe, Porcelain and Rocambole. Hardneck garlic is milder and many garlic growers prefer it.
Hardneck garlic sends up a tightly coiled central stalk called a scape. If left alone, the scape will uncoil and will flower. Most growers feel that this scape saps the energy from the bulb and they remove it after it uncoils. But don’t throw it away as its edible.
How to Grow Garlic: Planting
The garlic you grow is the same as the garlic you cook with and it comes the same way, in a head (also called a bulb). Once you start growing your own garlic, you’ll never have to buy it again as it is self perpetuating.
Do not crack the bulb open until you are ready to plant it. To bust open a head of garlic, place it on a firm surface, put both hands on top of the head (like you’re going to do CPR) and apply pressure until you hear it crack. Separate the cloves, but don’t peel them. Cloves are also called “sets.” Plant your sets 1′ apart (pointy end up). Plant each set 1″-2″ deep, and if planting more than one row, make sure there’s 4″-6″ between them.
Mulch your garlic to help protect them from the elements.
How to Grow Garlic: Feeding, Watering and Maintaining
After a week or so, feed your garlic with a fertilizer that is high in phosphorous. Phosphorous promotes healthy roots. Since your garlic is going to be underground all winter, it’s important to feed them.
Eventually you’ll start to see little green shoots poking up through the mulch. If you get impatient, you can pull back a little of the mulch to see how it’s going. Once you see the green shoots, top dress your garlic with a fertilizer that is higher in nitrogen, as nitrogen promotes the lush green plant we see above the soil.
Water them as needed, but let the top of the soil dry out between watering. Too much watering can cause rotting and make it vulnerable to mildew.
Bugs do not like garlic, but you will have to keep your eye out for white rot fungus. This can happen if you planted garlic that did not come from a certified grower or if the growing conditions are too wet. If you have healthy soil and don’t over-water, this shouldn’t be a problem.
How to Grow Garlic: Harvesting
Towards the end of your garlic’s growing cycle, some of the leaves will turn brown or yellow. Now is a good time to stop watering. Determining when to harvest your garlic can be a little difficult. Pull it up too early and you’ll be denying your heads a few more days of growth. Pull it up too late and your heads will have split. When the leaves are about 20% browned and dried up is a good time to start. When in doubt, pull one up.
The easiest way to get your garlic out of the ground is to loosen the soil on both sides of the garlic head with a garden fork. Then you gently pull them out and shake the dirt off. Don’t wash them off with water.
Cure the garlic heads by letting them dry out in a shady spot. Don’t leave freshly harvested garlic in the sun or it can get burned. Curing can take as little as three weeks or as long as two months, depending on the weather conditions. Once they’re cured, clean them by removing the loose skins around the heads, and if necessary use a soft brush, but NO WATER. If you do not intend to braid your garlic, you can then cut the tops 1″-2″ above the neck for the garlic and trim the roots to about ¼”.
Store them in brown paper bags (lunch bags work great), mesh bags or in old panty hose.
If you want to try your hand at braiding your garlic, leave the tops on. For a fantastic free tutorial on how to braid your garlic, check out: http://www.bloomingfieldsfarm.com/garbrdhow.html
How to Grow Garlic: Planning for Next Year
Before you start braiding up your garlic or eating it, there is one more thing you need to do. You need to decide which of your fat, succulent heads of garlic you’re are going use for planting. Remember that big, fat cloves beget big fat cloves. Usually you save your best heads for replanting. Garlic heads have anywhere from 20 to 40 cloves in them and you can grow another head from each of those cloves. Once you’ve learned how to grow garlic, you’ll never need to buy another set to plant.
How to Grow Garlic: Is it Worth it?
One head of garlic will provide you with an average of 30 sets (cloves). And each set will provide you with a head of garlic for each clove you planted. Garlic heads from the seed catalogs cost around $4.90. So each head will cost you 16 cents. Most people do not buy garlic in the grocery store by the pound, they usually get three or four and the average price here in tropical florida is about 30 cents a head. So, 30 heads of garlic would cost about $9 retail.
But think of this: the average cost of a garlic braid is around $20 (plus shipping) and has 18-20 bulbs of garlic woven into it. If you were to make your own braid garlic swags with 20 heads of garlic, it would only cost you $3.20 in garlic. Now that’s a fantastic savings!
If you decide to grow your own garlic, think of this: a dozen heads of garlic nestled in a baking dish. Each head drizzled with brilliant green olive oil and roasting in a 350 degree oven for an hour. You slice a crusty loaf of French bread in half, lightly butter it, then squeeze the browned and softened garlic on to your bread. A knife helps spread the nutty goodness to the very edge. You inhale first and then slowly open your drooling mouth and bite. Eyes close. Ecstasy, thy name is garlic.
