Growing garlic seems like it might only be a professional farmers crop. With a little planning you can grow your own garlic in your vegetable garden. It’s not very difficult, and can bring great tasty rewards at harvest time. The timing is the key.
How difficult is it to grow garlic?
Garlic isn’t particularly difficult to grow. You plant it similarly to planting tulips or daffodils and other bulb plants. You plant in the fall and let it winter over then you harvest next summer in July-ish depending on the growing zone where you live.
Garlic has some maintenance steps, but has the same general issues as other vegetables. You need to have good soil for it to grow, water, fertilize, and weeding of course. It is a relatively simple plant to enjoy.
Where can you grow garlic?
Garlic can be grown worldwide. As a general rule you need to plant it in the fall and let it go through a dormant cycle through winter. The winter dormancy it an important step. If the bulbs don’t experience this cold, you won’t get very large bulbs to eat at harvest time.
Once the temperature begins to warm up the bulbs will begin to grow. People enjoy growing garlic from all over the world in their back yard. You just need to follow a few simple steps and you can grow garlic from China, Russia, Italy, Sicily, Poland, etc. right in your own backyard.
Can tropical places like Florida or Costa Rica grow garlic?
Yes you can grow garlic in these areas. You need to add a step or two to the process. What you need to do is put the garlic bulbs through a dormancy phase, or a phase that mimics a winter season. The term for this is vernalization. The bulbs need to experience an extended period of cold.
This can be accomplished by putting the bulbs in your refrigerator. You need to keep the bulbs under 50 degrees Fahrenheit for 4-10 weeks before you plant them. From the research I have done it seems that putting the bulbs into a freezer is a bit too harsh. Using a refrigerator is a good way to have it cold, but not too cold. It does take quite a commitment to leave a space full for that long in your refrigerator.
Another consideration is water. Sometimes the more tropic climates get a bit too much rain for the garlic plants. Garlic needs to have about 2 inches of water a week. You may need to plan accordingly to have the garlic watered enough but not get waterlogged. Perhaps safeguards against too much water will be needed.
Some growers have cultivated varieties of garlic to be grown in more warm climates. Some of these include:
- Creoles
- Asiatic
- Hardnecks
- Marbled Purple Stripe
Many local gardeners are using heirloom varieties that have been adapted to the local conditions. If you reach out to the local growers you may find some gems that will work where you live.
Once you have the vernaliztion worked out, the varieties decided, and watering figured out; you grow it similarly to everywhere else. WE will discuss growing garlic a little bit later in this article.
What kind of garlic can you grow?
There are lots of varieties of garlic available to pant. You can plant the kind you find in the grocery store, but you will get mixed results. Sometimes those garlic bulbs have been treated with a sprouting inhibitor. It’s better to get garlic that is specifically meant for planting and growing.
The garlic comes down to 2-3 basic types. The hard neck variety, the soft neck variety, and the elephant type. All can be grown in the home vegetable garden.
Hard Neck Garlic
Hard neck garlic has a stiff stem that grows up from the center of the cluster of bulbs. Hardneck varieties are stronger in flavor and can vary in flavor from variety to variety. Many hardneck varieties have been handed down for generations. Hardneck garlic varieties can handle harsher winters with colder climates.
Soft Neck Garlic
Most garlic available in the grocery store is the soft neck kind. Soft neck garlic is a little more mild in flavor. Soft neck garlic also grows better in climates with a more moderate winter. Soft neck garlic stores well.
Elephant Garlic
Elephant garlic is more of a sort of garlic than a true garlic. It’s more like leeks than garlic. They can grow huge and be a really fun addition to the garden. They have a more mild flavor and like the name suggests they have huge bulbs.
Heirloom Garlic
When it comes to garlic a fun thing to do is to get associated with local growers that have heirloom varieties. Some of these varieties have adapted to the local climate and will grow well. Some of the histories of the garlic is interesting. Some varieties were brought in through immigrants on Ellis island. There is a treasure-trove of varieties from local heirloom growers and seed exchangers.
Planting garlic
Planting garlic is relatively easy. You prepare the ground or garden bed in the fall. Depending on what growing zone you are in you plant in October-December. The soil should be soft and free from debris as much as possible. Dig, till, or spade down 8-12 inches and loosen up the soil. Now is a good time to fertilize and till the fertilizer in mixing the soil up well.
The bulbs are separated from the cluster and planted with the point up and the root part down. The need to be planted 6-10 inches deep and 6-8 inches apart. You can shorten the spacing apart if needed, but try not to crowd them.
You plant them similarly to other bulb plants like tulips, daffodils, or crocus. The key is to get the roots beginning to grow in the fall and then after the dormancy in winter they take off and grow when spring hits.
You can still plant garlic in the spring however. You need to get the bulbs in as soon as you can get onto the soil. They will grow well if the bulbs have been left in the cold allowing for vernalization, or the dormant process to work. Garlic in planted in the spring may be a little behind in the growth, but will produce good result a little later.
Growing garlic
Growing garlic is relatively simple. You need to water it, but not drown it. You need to keep the weeds under control. Be careful when weeding garlic. Pulling weeds near the plant can uproot the whole thing and damage the plant. You also need to fertilize the plot where you are going to plant. I have an article on fertilizer here.
One thing that I have experienced is chickens and birds digging up the new shoots in the spring. The garlic will be one of the first plants to break the ground and grow in the spring. These tender green shoots are a magnet to birds and especially chickens. I usually roll out some chicken wire fencing on top of the beds of garlic. This allows the snow, rain, and sunlight to hit the bed, but protects the new shoots of garlic as they grow.
If you are growing the hardneck variety of garlic, in May or June you will notice the plants growing leaves and a center curly stock will show up. This is the garlic scape. Most growers will snap off this scape. This will allow the plant to focus more growth and nutrients to the bulbs instead of a flower. The scapes are really tasty and can be used in all kinds of recipes.
Once you have tasted home grown garlic you will probably want to keep growing it. You can use the bulbs from the previous harvest to plant with. It’s a good rule of thumb to pick the biggest bulbs to plant. Bigger bulbs will produce bigger bulbs.
Harvesting garlic
Harvesting garlic is pretty straight forward and simple. You will notice the plants starting to die generally towards the middle and end of July. You just dig beside the plant using caution to not dig too close cutting the bulbs. Pull the plants out and the bulbs will be attached to the bottom of the plants.
The garlic bulbs are a bit tender at this point and should be handled with care. The garlic plants should be left in a warm dry place out of the sun to cure. It takes 4-6 weeks to cure garlic depending on the humidity and temperature. You will notice that the skin around the bulbs will be like dried fragile paper.
When the garlic is cured you can trim off the stem and leaves. You don’t want to trim them too short, about an inch or two above the bulbs. If you trim the stem and leaves too short you run the risk of cutting the bulbs and drying them out.
Storing garlic.
There are a few different ways of storing garlic. Once the garlic is dried and the stem and leaves are trimmed you can store it in a cool dry place. Containers that will allow air to get to the bulbs is what you need. Mesh bags, crates with holes like a milk crate work well. This will have a shelf life of about 8-10 months.
A traditional method of storing garlic is weaving the leaves together creating a chain to hang in the kitchen or storage room. Soft neck garlic it a little easier to do this with. Just leave the leaves on and don’t trim them, use the leaves as the weaving material. It has the same shelf life of 8-10 months.
You can dry garlic, but be warned this can be a rather odiferous opportunity. Peel the cloves and slice them into even slices. Start your drying temp a little higher then turn it down after about an hour. You need it to dry not cook. Star around 140 degrees Fahrenheit for a couple of hours, then lower the temperature to 125-130 until it’s dry. How long you need to dry it will vary on the humidity. Once it’s dry you can grind it up for powder or blend with salt to make garlic salt.
You can freeze garlic in whole cloves. Some chop up garlic, put it in a freezer bag, and break of the amount they want as needed. Others will blend the garlic with olive oil or vegetable oil, freeze the paste in a freezer bag and use what they want. Freezing the garlic increases the length of storing the garlic.
Another method of storing garlic is in vinegar. Just submerge the peeled cloves in vinegar. This adds a great flavor to the vinegar as well. It’s fun to experiment with apple cider vinegar, rice wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, etc.
Summary
You can for sure grow garlic in your garden! You just need to:
- plan ahead a little bit
- prepare your soil by tilling and fertilizing
- plant the bulbs in the fall as you would other bulb plants
- take care of the plants when they sprout in the spring
- weed and water as you would normally
- snap off the scapes when they show up in May or June
- harvest the garlic when the leaves start to dry and turn brown
- let the bulbs cure and dry for a few weeks
- store and enjoy.