Growing Garlic

Growing garlic is a very easy task that requires very little space, very little preparation, and very little time (depending on how many you are planting, of course).  There are two main types of garlic, and many varieties of each – softneck and hardneck.  Usually the hardneck varieties tolerate our cold winters the best, and the softneck varieties grow best in mild winters – though they are pretty hardy no matter what.  Hardneck varieties have bigger cloves and stronger flavor.  Softneck varieties often have small cloves that are harder to peel, but have a milder taste.

The best time to plant garlic is in mid-October, so right about now in our area. However, you can plant garlic up until the ground freezes! In well draining, loose soil, dig a trench about 3-4 inches deep. Plant your garlic with the root end down and the pointy end up so they are about 2-3 inches below the surface of the soil, 6 inches apart, in rows 12 inches apart. Cover with loose soil, then cover with another 6 inches of straw or loose mulch if you can. The garlic will find its way through a light mulch, and early week control

I like to lay down rabbit manure or aged compost to the area I am about to plant in.  As I plant one row, already dug, I begin digging the next  row, filling the previous trench I just planted, with soil from the new row I am digging.  Make sure the soil is loose in the entire planting area – pretty deep too.  Soil that compacts will prohibit growth of the bulbs.   I make my garlic beds about 3-3.5ft wide. I feel that is a nice width for my personal preferences, having to consider how hard it’ll be to reach the middle of the bed for weeding or other care.

For my 25 ft. rows, I planted approximately 4-5 big heads of garlic per row.   All the kids gathered together to separate the garlic heads into cloves (leave the paper skins on), then we found a rock to space them roughly 6 inches apart.  The pictures above seem to show the cloves a lot closer than that, but there was a lot of paper from the garlic heads that fell into the trenches, too. I think I am seeing the paper from separating the cloves that makes the ‘cloves’ look so close.  We dug a little trench to place the cloves in, pointy side up planted at a depth of about 2-3 inches.  If you prefer making individual holes or aren’t planting a ton and don’t mind individual holes, a dibble is a great tool to use.  Simply insert it to the proper depth (measurements are often on the tool) and it makes a hole for you.  Use one wide enough to easily slide a garlic clove into the resulting hole.  I made mine using dowel rod, cut to length, a point whittled and sanded, measurements woodburned in, stained then sprayed with a protective coating.  Of course, fingers work just fine too.

In the spring, when the garlic sends up shoots, fertilizer is beneficial.  Some like to fertilize or side dress with compost again around May, then you will harvest usually early to mid summer.  Keep the weeds at bay and make sure the soil stays moist, but not soaking wet or the garlic will rot.  If you are growing a hardneck variety, be sure to cut off the ‘scape’ when it grows (they are great to eat – sautee them to add a mild garlic flavor to your food) so your bulb will grow larger.  For another treat, itty bitty garlic cloves can be grown closely together and you can trim the resulting shoots and use like you would chives (I hate waste, so I’ll plant every single clove in one way or another, LOL. These cloves most likely would not grow into a meaningful head of garlic, so they would be planted just for the shoots in the spring).

I wait until most of the green garlic leaves have yellowed before thinking about harvesting.  This way the papery skins have a chance to toughen up before they are removed from the dirt.  Don’t pull them up – gently dig them up with your fingers or a small shovel.  I like to keep the stems on and braid them to cure for a while (3-4 weeks or so) once they are out of the ground.

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