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Garlic is one of the easiest crops you can grow. In most regions of the country, garlic is planted in the fall, about 4-6 weeks before the ground freezes. By that time, many summer crops have already been harvested, leaving some free garden space. Just remember that the garlic bed won't be available for another type of crop until late next summer, when it's time to harvest the garlic you planted the previous fall.
Pick a Variety (or two...)
If you're replanting garlic from your own stock, choose the biggest and best heads from the summer's harvest. Simply put, the larger the planted clove, the larger the harvested head. If purchasing, look for garlic sold specifically for planting. Garlic from the produce section at the supermarket may have been treated with a sprout inhibitor to prevent it from growing.
There are several types of garlic.
Hardneck garlic varieties produce a stiff stem that grows up through the center of the bulb. Compared to softneck varieties, then tend to have a sharper flavor, with more variation in flavor among the varieties. They're hardier, too, making them a good choice for regions with very cold winters. Once harvested, the bulbs have a somewhat shorter shelf life than softneck varieties.
Popular hardneck varieties: "Music", "German Red", "Chesnok Red"
Softneck garlic varieties don't produce a stiff central stem. This list the type of garlic you'll find at most supermarkets. It has a relatively mild flavor. Softneck garlic is the best choice for regions with mild winters, and it's the type to grow if you want to make garlic braids.
Popular softneck varieties: "Inchelium Red", "California Whiite Early"
Elephant garlic resembles a giant head of garlic and, indeed, it does belong to the same genus, Allium. However, it isn't a "true" garlic but rather is more closely related to the leek.
Planting Garlic
- Plan to plant garlic in fall about four to six weeks before the ground freezes.
- Prepare the soil by loosening it to a depth of at least 8" and mix in some slow-release, granular organic fertilizer.
- Just prior to planting, break up the garlic heads into individual cloves, leaving as much of the papery covering on each clove intact as possible.
- Plant cloves 3" to 4" deep, orienting them so the pointy ends face up.
- Water gently to settle the soil, and then cover the bed with a 4" to 6" layer of straw. Even as air temperatures drop, the soil will stay warm enough for the newly planted cloves to establish roots before the ground freezes.
Sometimes you'll see some green shoots form in fall; that's fine and won't harm plants. They'll begin growing in earnest in spring.
Here in Vermont it's easy to tell when the garlic should be planted. Look up at the hillsides. If they're a blaze of red, orange and yellow, it's time.
If you planted hardneck varieties, they'll probably form curly scapes. It's best to cut these off so the plants will direct their energy to producing large underground bulbs. The tender stalks can be used in stir-fries or sauteed with vegetables.
Last updated: 10/18/2022
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Garlic: How to Plant, Grow, and Harvest Garlic Bulbs
Growing your own garlic is always exciting. This pungent bulb adds flavor to countless recipes—and is so healthy! Just plant cloves in the fall, and you’ll be rewarded with a bountiful garlic harvest after winter! Before you plant, it’s important to know which variety is a match for your climate—and your cooking!
About Garlic
Garlic is one of the few crops that you plant in the fall! You simply plant a clove from this year’s head of garlic, cover with mulch, and harvest in summer during the middle of the vegetable garden season.
After you harvest and clean out the bed, you can plant another crop in the same bed!
You can also enjoy garlic leaves or “scapes” which appear in early spring. They’re delicious stir fried or in salads.
In addition to having an intense flavor and many culinary uses, the “stinking rose” also serves as an insect repellent in the garden, and it has been used as a home remedy for centuries.
Can You Plant Store-Bought Garlic?
We do not recommend this. Most grocery store garlic heads have been treated. Plus, most commercial garlic comes from large-scale farming areas with mild climates (such as California), so the garlic may not be suited for growing in your own climate and may carry pests or diseases with it as well.
If you want big bulbs, use “seed” garlic from a local nursery, farmer’s market, or online seed supplier. Or, keep some of your best heads of garlic from your harvest to replant! But before you plant garlic, make sure you know the difference between the two main types of garlic: hardneck and softneck garlic – and which type will grow best in your climate.
See Recommended Varieties below.
Planting
Garlic does best in full sun, so select a planting site that receives 6 to 8 hours of sunlight per day. A couple weeks or so before planting, prepare the soil by mixing in a healthy helping of compost or aged manure.
If your garden soil is poorly draining or high in clay, garlic grower Robin Jarry of Hope, Maine, suggests growing in heavily mulched raised beds instead. “I plant in raised beds for good drainage, and then mulch with about 6 inches of old hay after the ground freezes. I never water my garlic—I like low-maintenance vegetables!” Raised beds should be 2 to 3 feet wide and at least 10 to 12 inches deep.
When to Plant Garlic
Garlic is most often planted in the fall (between late September and November). In areas that get a hard frost, plant garlic cloves 6 to 8 weeks before the first fall frost date, before the ground freezes.
Garlic does best if it can experience a “dormancy” period of colder weather—at least 40˚F (4°C)—that lasts 4 to 8 weeks.
By planting garlic bulbs in the fall, they have time to develop healthy roots before temperatures drop and/or the ground freezes, but not enough time for the garlic to form top growth. Then, by early spring, the bulbs “wake up” from their dormancy and start rapidly producing foliage, followed by bulbs, before the harshest heat of summer stops their growth.
In mild climates, you can plant garlic cloves as late as February or March, but the resulting bulbs won’t be as large. However, you can still enjoy the garlic scapes during the summer. (Scapes are the plant’s tender green shoots and have a mild garlic flavor. Enjoy on eggs, in salads, as a pizza topping, or in stir-fries!) If you plant in the spring, wait to do so until after the soil can be worked and it crumbles apart easily.
Photo by YuriyS/Getty ImagesHow to Plant Garlic
-
- Select large, healthy cloves, free of disease. The larger the clove, the bigger and healthier the bulb you will get the following summer.
- Break apart cloves from the bulb a few days before planting, but keep the papery husk on each individual clove.
- Plant cloves 4 to 8 inches apart and 2 inches deep, in their upright position (with the wider root side facing down and pointed end facing up).
- Plant in rows spaced 6 to 12 inches apart. A single 10-foot row should yield about 5 pounds of the fragrant bulbs, depending on the variety.
In this short video, Ben shares his tried and tested techniques for planting a truly spectacular crop of garlic.
how to grow, when to plant and dig, what to do with the harvest
Traditionally, garlic is propagated by cloves - individual segments of the bulb.
However, there are problems here. Firstly, there are few cloves in one garlic bulb, and if you got some valuable variety in a small amount, you won’t be able to breed it quickly - it will take years. In addition, the bulbs that are underground often get sick, but they cannot be planted.
These shortcomings are completely devoid of air bulbs - mini-onions, which are formed in garlic inflorescences instead of seeds.
Why is this method good? In order to get a total of 200 heads of garlic, you need to leave only 4 arrows of garlic.
Disadvantages of the method
The first disadvantage is that this method is suitable for winter garlic. Spring shooter usually does not form, with the exception of a few varieties, for example Gulliver - it produces inflorescences.
The second problem is that large, full-fledged garlic from bulbs is obtained only in the second year. In the first season, a single-toothed bulb grows from mini-bulbs. It will have to be planted again, and only next summer will we get a traditional head with many cloves. On the other hand, this method is no more difficult than growing onions, because it is also obtained in 2 years - sevok grows in the first seed, and a large turnip grows from it in the second summer.
How to collect garlic bulbs
Garlic shoots from bulbs begin to appear in late June - early July. To get heads that are in the ground, they are not needed - they are usually broken out, because the arrows take on a lot of nutrients to the detriment of the bulb. But to get bulbs, they need to be left - 4 - 5 will be enough.
It is better to choose the most powerful arrows, with large inflorescences - in them the onions will be larger.
In most varieties of winter garlic, the arrows are first twisted into a spiral. As they mature, they straighten up. So when they become straight - it's time to collect the bulbs, they are ripe.
Photo: pixabay.comArrows should be cut at the bottom, at the very base. Before harvesting, it would be nice to lay a film or some kind of cloth under the plants - it happens that garlic bulbs crumble.
Cut arrows are tied into a bundle and hung in a dark, warm place for 3 to 4 weeks - they should be ripened and dried.
After this, the inflorescences with bulbs are cut off from the shoot and sent for storage. Here are the whole inflorescences right - it is not necessary to exfoliate the bulbs from them.
It is best to store inflorescences with mini-bulbs in a newspaper, in a dry and dark place with a temperature of 18 - 20 °C.
When to plant garlic bulbs
Garlic bulbs can be planted in autumn and spring (1).
Autumn. In this case, bulbs collected in summer are sown in late September - early October to a depth of 5 - 6 cm. The distance between mini-bulbs in a row should be 3 cm, between rows - 15 cm. Planting in winter is mulched with peat with a layer of 2 cm.
In spring, some of the bulbs may appear on the surface of the soil - it happens that they are squeezed out by frozen soil. In this case, they just need to be buried in the soil - you can simply press it with your finger.
Spring. With this option of sowing, the bulbs are stored all winter in a dry, dark and warm place, but 1.
5 months before sowing (approximately at the end of February) they need to be removed in the cold - a cellar, a refrigerator or buried in the snow in a cloth bag. Onions should spend this time at a temperature of 0 - 4 ° C. If this is not done, an underdeveloped head will grow out of the bulbs.
Spring planting distance is the same as autumn planting. But the embedment depth should be less - 3 - 4 cm. It is also useful to mulch the beds with peat with a layer of 1 - 2 cm - this will protect the soil from drying out. Shoots usually appear after 10 days (2).
In both cases, before planting the bulbs, it is useful to soak for 30 minutes in a light pink solution of potassium permanganate - this will disinfect them.
When to harvest
Single-toothed bulbs, which grow by the end of the first season, are dug up, like ordinary winter garlic, around mid-August, when the leaves turn yellow. They are dried and sent to a dark warm room.
Photo: globallookpress.com At the end of September, they are again planted in the beds - everything is exactly the same as when planting winter garlic with cloves.
Next year, they will make full-fledged heads, in which there are 7 - 11 cloves (3).
Popular questions and answers
agronomist-breeder Svetlana Mikhailova answered the questions of summer residents about growing garlic from bulbs.
Where can I buy garlic bulbs?
Garden centers don't sell them - only cloves can be found there. But you can look for private traders - sometimes they sell them on social networks. Well, or ask friends or neighbors in the country, if you know that they have a good variety.
How many bulbs of garlic do you need for 1 hectare?
This is easy to calculate. Weaving - a section with a length and width of 10 m or 1000 cm. The distance between the rows should be 15 cm, which means that 67 rows will fit in the width of such a section. The distance between the bulbs in a row is 3 cm, therefore, in a row 10 m long, 333 pieces will fit. It remains to multiply and get 22,311 bulbs. So you can get a lot of planting material from a hundred square meters.
How many bulbils ripen in 1 head of garlic?
One bulb of garlic produces from 20 to 100 bulbs, depending on the variety and growing conditions.
Sources
- Group of authors ed. Polyanskoy A.M. and Chulkova E.I. Tips for gardeners // Minsk, Harvest, 1970 - 208 p.
- Fisenko A.N., Serpukhovitina K.A., Stolyarov A.I. Garden. Handbook // Rostov-on-Don, Rostov University Press, 1994 - 416 p.
- Romanov V.V., Ganichkina O.A., Akimov A.A., Uvarov E.V. In the garden and in the garden // Yaroslavl, Upper Volga book publishing house, 1989 - 288 p.
How to grow garlic? How and when to plant garlic? Garlic care
1 How to plant garlic?
2 When to plant garlic?
3 Caring for garlic
4 Useful properties of garlic
5 Pests, diseases of garlic
6 Interesting facts about garlic
Garlic is a perennial herbaceous plant from the genus "Onion", family "Amaryllis".
Due to its unique taste and useful properties, it is used in many cuisines of the world. The aroma and pungent taste of garlic cannot be confused with anything.
The unusual smell is due to the presence of organic sulfides (thio esters) in the plant. Garlic cloves are eaten raw, added to dishes, used as a seed. In young plants, leaves, shoots and flower stalks are used.
How to plant garlic?
Every self-respecting farmer plants garlic in his garden. It is clear that he wonders: " How to grow garlic ?". There are only two types of garlic:
- spring
- winter.
It will seem that there is no difference between them, in fact, the main difference lies in the landing time.
The cultivation process is not at all laborious, for this plant the advantage is cultivated soil, with fertile qualities. Sandy and loamy soil is perfect, the acidity is normally neutral.
Garlic is propagated mainly with cloves, the largest specimens are chosen.
First calibrate in size, it is desirable that they be the same. It is recommended to disinfect with a weak manganese solution or alkali (ash).
Spring planted garlic can be germinated. Prepared cloves are placed in a damp cloth and dipped in a plastic bag for two days. The procedure is carried out at room temperature.
The photo shows garlic cloves for planting
The cloves are planted in rows, every 18-20 cm. Garlic for the winter is also planted in rows, every 20-25 cm. 8-10 cm are kept between small cloves, 12-15 cm between large cloves, a depth of at least 15-20 cm.
When to plant garlic?
The timing for planting garlic will vary because spring garlic is planted in April/May and winter garlic is planted in September/October. As soon as the snow melts, they start planting spring garlic. The temperature regime is observed not lower than +5 ... +7 ° С.
If the soil is too dry, it must be watered; if it is wet, watering is done in a couple of days.
How to grow spring garlic ? To do this, you need to correctly plant the cloves. The length of the slice is measured, the indicator is multiplied by two and the required depth is obtained. In centimeters it will be 5-6, no more.
So that the garlic does not rot, the ground for planting is sprinkled with sand or ash.
If the cloves have already sprouted, they are planted carefully, without damaging the roots. After planting, the soil must be mulched. The first shoots will appear in the second week after planting, at a temperature of +3 ... +4 ° C. Winter garlic is planted, adhering to the technology to prevent early germination.
The plant is very resistant to frost, but also reacts violently to temperature fluctuations. In the period September / October, it is necessary to choose the time when the soil temperature is set to + 1 ... + 2 ° С. Now you can plant cloves for the winter. The prepared grooves are sprinkled with sand (ash), preventing the formation of rot.
The soil is also mulched, the ball should reach at least 1.5-2 cm. Peat or a mixture of earth with sawdust from wood can act as mulch. If winter portends a lot of rain, then winter garlic is covered with roofing felt or oilcloth. When heavy snow is expected, the cover is removed so that the bed is wrapped in a snow blanket.
How to grow garlic from seed ? During the end of the growing season, arrow shoots are cut from the plant. Rather, it is not seeds that are formed, but bulbous bulbs. If they are planted, then in the first year there will be only one onion set, and in the second year - a ripe onion head with several cloves.
On the photo bulbs of garlic
Caring for garlic
Garlic in care is not whimsical, even if you grow it at home. After the emergence of seedlings, it is necessary that the soil is always loose. Green shoots are not at all afraid of frost. The main thing for garlic is the organization of timely watering.
It is divided into approximately two phases. The first stage falls on intensive vegetation, therefore it is watered abundantly.
In the second stage, during the ripening of the bulbs, moderate moisture is produced. For garlic (the second half of the growing season), oversaturation with water is dangerous. Often this leads to the decay of the inside of the bulb and provokes the development of diseases.
Mineralization is generally not used for top dressing. It is better to add organic fertilizers to the soil in the form of rotted cow manure (ratio 1:10) or chicken manure (ratio 1:12).
The procedure is carried out in the spring, when the ground begins to melt. In June / July, an ash solution is added (200 g per bucket of water). This is how you can grow large garlic . The area with garlic should be weed-free, and the soil loose, not clogged.
When mulching is used, the need for weeding and loosening disappears by itself. For the area where garlic is planted, excellent lighting is important.
It is not necessary to plant a plant under the crowns of trees or near the garden.
The plant is excellent "friends" with raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries, potatoes, tomatoes. He is also respected and loved by gladioli, roses, tulips. The merit is that garlic protects rose bushes from black spots. Caterpillars prefer to be further away, slugs and borers do not crawl into the territory where it grows at all.
If a gardener asks a problem: " How to grow garlic with one head ?" This refers to planting a plant with a sevkom - a small head. Harvest should be expected only in the second year. This method is resorted to when planting a crop in small areas for domestic purposes.
Pictured is a single-toothed garlic
Useful properties of garlic
During intensive growth, when garlic has green shoots, it releases allicin in hot weather. This essential oil is a strong antioxidant. The plant contains phytoncides - compounds of the organic group.
Thanks to the latter property, garlic has a unique flavor.
The plant has a lot of useful properties. Garlic juice contains biologically active substances. It is used against malaria, various fungi, intestinal parasites, viruses and as an anti-inflammatory agent. There is evidence that it can be taken as an antipyretic.
Binding the leaves of garlic improves the size of its "head"
Garlic extracts are used to heal and disinfect wounds. Garlic tinctures are effective as immunostimulants and against cancerous tumors. Actively fights viruses during the flu.
Garlic has been scientifically proven to contain an antibiotic that affects fungi such as Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella and Candida. It has a detrimental effect on pathological Escherichia coli.
Helps reduce cholesterol levels in cell membranes in case of heart disease. Helps lower blood pressure, preventing atherosclerosis. Helps cells get rid of free radicals.
In the photo arrows of garlic
Pests, diseases of garlic
Most often shoots of garlic are affected during the growing season by fusarium, bacterial putrefaction, powdery mildew (downy), white and black mold.
The diseased planting material precedes the destruction.
During the emergence of shoots, affected plants are destroyed. Insect pests that cause significant harm are onion flies and thrips; larval placenta, moth and nematode insects; root and four-legged garlic mites.
Interesting facts about garlic
The beneficial properties of garlic were known even to primitive people. The ancient tribes noticed that if you eat a couple of cloves of garlic, you can cure some diseases. Modern doctors advise to supplement the diet with garlic dishes during the flu and cold season.
Traditional medicine advises sneezing and coughing people to drink tea with lemon, honey and raspberry jam, and of course eat garlic cloves. There are many legends about this plant, distributed almost all over the globe. The Most Fascinating Garlic Facts:
1.
Botany as a science reports the closest relationship of two plants - garlic and onion. In nature, there is even a garlic plant, which is a hybrid of two plants.
A popular variety of onion garlic called Rocambole
2. The Chinese, Indians and Koreans eat the most garlic in the world. Their daily norm is ten garlic cloves.
3. Botanists know an amazing type of garlic, in which the bulb is a single whole with cloves that do not divide from the fruit.
4. Russian medicine has not included this plant in the list of medicines, but traditional medicine calls garlic the most healing plant.
5. Gascony is a very interesting French province. The population of this region loves to eat a bowl of garlic soup for lunch. This is an old custom of eating "touraine", which is a spicy and peculiar dish among the French.
6. Phytoncides are volatile compounds invisible to human eyes. They are able to kill viruses and microbes that are dangerous to human health.
There are many phytoncides in spruce and pine forests, as well as in garlic and onions. That is why garlic cloves help with acute respiratory viral diseases.
7. Six thousand years ago, garlic grew only in the wild, but then ancient people began to grow domestic garlic.
8. Garlic contains substances that are poisonous to cats and dogs. Therefore, we must ensure that our pets do not have access to this plant.
9. The ancient Indians wrote the book of legends "Atharvaveda". This literary work, in particular, talks about garlic as a plant that can scare away evil spirits.
10. One fruit can contain from two to fifty heads of garlic. Their number depends on the type of plant.
11. Wild garlic and its domestic counterpart are not just relatives, but genetically identical plants.
12. The Spanish city of Las Pedroneras is famous for being unofficially considered the garlic capital of the world.
13. A stalk of garlic can grow up to a meter and a half.
Garlic leaves can reach huge sizes
14. Ancient Egyptians built pyramids for pharaohs. Garlic was given daily to keep them going through such heavy physical work. One day, the workers did not receive a portion of garlic, and an uprising broke out in the country. This historical event took place approximately 3600 years ago.
15. Ten years ago, in the Celestial Empire, garlic increased in price by as much as forty times. The Chinese associated such a sad event with the spread of the swine flu virus. Rumors began to spread around the country that garlic cloves could effectively kill dangerous viruses. The demand for this healing product has grown sharply, and sellers have sharply inflated prices as a result.
16. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are the Central Asian states, where for the first time on the planet they began to grow garlic after they domesticated its wild counterpart.
17. In the ancient world, people believed that garlic helps protect against demons.
Therefore, in almost every dwelling one could see hanging garlic garlands.
18. This herb contains over 100 active chemicals.
19. It is customary to eat only garlic bulbs, although almost all parts of this plant are edible and useful: leaf, bulb, inflorescence, etc.
You can eat almost all parts of garlic
20. Ancient The Egyptians used garlic for ritual purposes. During archaeological excavations in the tombs of nobles, garlic cloves were discovered in front of the eyes of mummies.
21. Viruses and bacteria are killed by contact with garlic.
22. Residents of China and Japan make pickling garlic at high temperatures. The vegetable loses bitterness, becomes sweet, and also changes color to black. Asians call such garlic "black garlic", for them it is a favorite delicacy.
23. Potassium, zinc, selenium, calcium, magnesium - this is not a complete list of useful minerals that the garlic fruit is rich in.
24.
Ancient Roman legionaries were obliged to eat garlic before the battle. This was due to the fact that in ancient times it was believed that this plant was able to give courage to warriors during battles, to make them strong soldiers.
25. Ancient Indians treated garlic very respectfully as a plant capable of killing microbes with its smell. But because of the pungent smell, they used garlic only for medicinal purposes, but did not cook dishes from it.
26. Russian scientists have registered twenty-six varieties of this vegetable.
27. Back in the nineteenth century, it was proved that garlic has antibiotic properties, that this vegetable is a real antibiotic from nature.
28. "Wild garlic" - this is how the name of the American metropolis Chicago is translated from the Indian language.
29. Winter garlic, sown in autumn, tolerates winter cold very well. In the spring, after the snow melts, he begins to delight with young green shoots. In central Russia, it is customary to sow winter garlic for the Feast of the Intercession.
