Fearless Gardener

the quick and dirty on growing garlic

This will be the quick and dirty how to grow garlic, focused on northern climates including Canada and the Northern States.  I promise, tons of beautiful details are coming in future posts.

1. Get garlic you like and want to grow, your local farmers’ market is an awesome source.  Plants love to thrive when they are planted in a similar environment to their parent.  This is true for garlic, and true for other seeds.
2. Where to plant it – garlic adapts well.  Grow it just about any garden, but don’t grow it where it gets wet and soggy.  I have a section of my veggie garden that gets flooded every spring, and garlic never goes there.  Garlic seems to survive surprisingly well in raised beds as well, but bigger and lower to the ground the bed, the better the chances of your cloves not getting too deep a freeze when the January temperatures dive to -30 Celsius
3. When to plant – well that is a well debated discussion and anytime from early to late fall works just fine.  Research at the University of Guelph ( I did my undergrad there so am happy to quote their results!) show that planting early, as early as late August in Zone 6, yielded large bulbs.  History tells us that planting after the first frost is preferred.  This tells me, anywhere late August to early November should be fine.  I love to plant mine at Thanksgiving – that is Canadian Thanksgiving which is the second weekend in October.  I tell myself – no turkey until the garlic is all in the ground.
4. Is the soil ready?  Garlic loves nutrient rich soil.  If you have compost or manure, toss it in – and toss a little more in.  That good.  Mix it in and the garlic will thank you not only with bigger size, but better flavour!  More sulfur in the soil, found in manure, means more garlicky taste in your harvest.  A good couple of inches of manure or compost is perfect.
5. And now what?  Grab your bulbs and break them apart into individual cloves.  If a few wrapper or layers of paper come up do not worry.  It will still grow.  Garlic is hardy.
6. Push them into the ground.  Push your garlic cloves into the ground, let them sink below the soil about 2 inches if you can.  It is best to plant them 6 inches apart, on all sides, to give them room to thrive.
7. Okay, that is it.  Some people like to mulch their garlic – that is cover them with a layer of straw or leaves.  Benefits are keeping that garlic cozy in a super duper frost (I have had garlic thrown on the lawn grow in the spring despite -30 weather), keeping the soil moist in the summer, and my favourite KEEPING THE WEEDS DOWN!
8. Go inside, brew a cup of tea and wait through the winter.
9. In the spring you will see that beautiful garlic poking up, sometimes through the thinning ice and snow!  Your job now is to take a picture and post it on Facebook.
10. Your garlic will grow until mid June when you will notice a large, thick stalk starting to come up the centre.  This is your Scape!  What are scapes you ask?  Scapes are the flower stem of garlic, that comes up ,and curls beautifully, before maturing into a flower and bulbils.  And you, want to take that scape off!  Sometime between emergence and it making two full curls, you want to snap it and take it into the kitchen.  Throw it in a stir fry, brush it with oil and BBQ it, whiz it into a pesto – but don’t leave it on the plant.  By removing the scape you are allowing the plant to focus on big, beautiful bulbs, not pretty flower heads.
11. About 3-4 weeks after the scape comes up, the plant I ready to dig up!  Look at the plant – generally if about half the leaves are yellowing and the other half are still green it is time to pull that plant
12. Woohoo, celebrate, show everyone that big beautiful garlic your have!
13. You can eat it right away, or you can cure it for longer term storage!  To cure it you need to put is somewhere out of the sun, with good air flow, for 2 to 4 weeks.  Some people hang it, others lay it on mesh.  Some people leave all the leaves one, some cut it back.  You pick what works best for you.  You are curing it until the leaves and stem are dry, and the neck is hard.  If you cut the neck it should be dry, white, and hard inside.  Now you can keep that garlic in a dark, not too dry and not too moist location with good air flow and you should have garlic all winter (don’t forget to save some to replant in the fall!)

That is it!  That is the basics of growing garlic.  Easier then growing spinach that bolts as soon as it gets hot outside!