Planting Garlic

Garlic is easily grown in all areas from cloves that are also easily acquired.  You can get them from the supermarket, if you don't care whether or not they are organic.  Or you can get them from a farmer's market, which is a better choice.  Or the best choice would be to get cloves from an on-line source like Park Seed.  The thing about garlic is that it takes  about 9 months to form a full head underground.  That's a long time for a crop.  It's usually planted in the fall and harvested the following summer. You can also harvest it in the early spring, for what's called "spring garlic."  The head hasn't bulbed up yet, but the tender just-forming shoots are more mild and a rare treat to use in the kitchen. 

Garlic is one of my favorite things to grow because it is one of the very few crops where, for me at least, there are NO BUGS INVOLVED!

When something I plant grows for 6 or more months without one single pest attempting to kill it, eat it, lay its eggs on it, uproot it, or otherwise ruin it, it’s HELLA fun!  No worry gardening.  More crops like that, and this whole farmin’ thang might actually be more fun than work.  Oops, just thought of something that tries to ruin the garlic, but it’s easily dealt with.  After planting, about two weeks later the cloves start to sprout and break the surface.  On the first day they emerge, and before they can turn green from photosynthesis, the tip is white.  The birds around here mistake the tiny tip as a worm, and hop into the bed to investigate.  They tug at it, often pulling the whole clove out of the ground.  I can easily pop it back in, but the birds do not learn that it’s not something they want to eat, and keep pulling them out.  To prevent this, I cover the bed with the lightest weight floating row cover.  Water, air and sunlight can go right through this cover.  The birds, however, leave well enough alone.  Once the garlic gets going, oh about 4 inches tall or so, I can remove the cover without any more bird worries.

Here’s how I plant garlic:

We’re using cloves from last season’s crop.  We had a lot more garlic than the restaurant could use, and so instead of having to buy garlic cloves for planting, I had a ready stock.  Since biodynamic farmers try to save all their own seeds, I felt great that we had some good garlic cloves for planting.  In this photo, you see two different types of garlic bunches, the one on the left is soft-neck and the one on the right is hard-neck.  The hard-neck have fewer, larger cloves and have a moderately long shelf life.  The soft-neck have more, smaller cloves and generally have the longest shelf life (in some cases up to 9-10 months).  Soft-necks are easier to grow and tolerate warmer temperatures and more climatic variability.  I grew both types last season and had good luck with both.

Since we had our own heads, all we had to to was cut off the stems with a pruners and then separate the cloves:

In your properly prepared planting bed (see post: "Preparing a bed for replanting"), you'll be inserting the garlic cloves pointy side up. You should have noticed when you separated them that there was a dry root bottom, and a more slender pointy top.  This top is where the shoot will come out (have any of you ever had old garlic sprout in your kitchen?).  If your planting bed is prepped right, it should be nice and fluffy, and you should be able to easily press the clove into the soil so that there will be about two inches of soil covering it.

I plant the cloves closer than they should be, because the chef really only wants the spring garlic.  If you were going to wait for the full head to form, you'd plant the cloves about 4 inches apart, in rows 6 inches apart.  Since the spring garlic is pulled when it's smaller, I get away with planting it 2 inches apart, in rows 4 inches apart. 

Now that all the cloves have been pressed into the bed, I go back over it with the wrong side of a rake and tamp or firm down the soil a bit. 

When the bed is all tamped down, I cover it with the lightest weight floating row cover and affix with landscape staples.  I can then water right through the cloth.  This stays in place for about four weeks. 

Two weeks later, you can see that the garlic have already sprouted.  Yippee!

What you'll need to do now is to keep up a regimen of fertilizing with a high nitrogen organic, such as fish emulsion every two or three weeks, if you can. If you don't, and you find the garlic turning yellow, that is a sure sign of nitrogren deficiency, so fertilize immediately.  In snowy climates, you'll need to mulch the garlic with a good thick layer of straw to protect it over the winter.  Do not use hay, there is a difference, and you'll notice it when all the seed pods left in the hay start to sprout all over your garden next spring.

Comments

[Annette Truong]

This is an amazing article on garlic! I love learning about what I can plant at different times of the year. Because I'm new to winter gardening in California, I'm amazed that some things can be started in the winter. How late is "too late" to plant garlic outside in San Jose, California? Thanks for your unending advice. -AET

[Carol O'Donnell]

I love growing garlic and purchase seed garlic from www.filareefarm.com
On November 10th, 2007 I planted five different varieties. In February 2007 I planted garlic, surprise, it produced well. Probably the bulbs were smaller than they should have been, but it worked for last year's disorganized gardener.

[dongborja]

the article is good but I need to learn more about biodynamic farming fit here in the Philippines.

[John Salvatore]

I am arriving in Cebu on the 15th of May, 2008 and I am very interested in farming garlic or rice. Thank you very much for any assistance you can provide me.
John Salvatore

[Jeannie]

Wow, I really loved this post. What could be more amazing than fresh garlic with your fresh basil and heirloom tomatoes. Planting garlic is refreshingly Thanks