Growing Great Garlic

There are few crops as funky, dependable, and well loved as garlic. For good reasons too! Garlic, and the other bulbs in the Allium family (like onions and shallots), add the base flavor to meals the world over. They’re easy to grow, easy to store, and easy to cook with.

Humans have been cultivating garlic for over 7,000 years! In that time, we’ve selected variations in flavor, size, growth habits to come up with roughly 700 current varieties.

This article will help you grow your own garlic too!

I presented a companion class
Grow Great Garlic via the
Minnesota State Horticultural Society,
available in their Webinar Shop for $8

Michelle

Why Grow Your Own Garlic?

We’ve already mentioned flavor, but did you know that over 80% of grocery store garlic comes from China? The food miles associated with garlic are astronomical, not to mention the loss of flavor, nutrition, and not knowing how it was grown.

Besides better flavor and food miles, garlic also makes a wonderful companion plant in the vegetable garden. By adding garlic bulbs (or any Allium, really) to your garden, you can deter pests like mice, moles, voles, and even rabbits!

Garlic is also fun to grow because of its slightly off kilter planting cycle. In the north we plant in the late fall when everything else has already died back. Just being able to dig into the soil at this time of year is a treat! It is also one of the first annuals to pop up in the vegetable garden, coming soon after its cousin, the chive.

Hard or Soft?

Garlic comes in two main varieties, hard and soft neck. The names refer to their differences in shooting up a central flower stalk, that dries hard—or soft, leaving the tops of the plant—you guessed it, hard or soft! Hard neck varieties are in general better suited to the north, and in general soft neck are best grown in the south. However, there are decent soft neck varieties that we can grow in the north too. Inchelium Red tops the lists. 

Growing Basics

Garlic appreciates rich soil and lots of sun, at least 10 hours per day. This season I had planted along a fence line and the back edge didn’t get as much sun as the front and there was a direct correlation to how far forward (and how much sun they got) and the size of the mature bulbs!

Garlic does not like it wet, so make sure the soil is well draining. Like anything else you grow, starting with good ‘seed stock’ makes a huge difference, so choose the largest healthiest looking bulbs for planting.

Plant Garlic in the Fall

The timing of planting matters. In Zone 4b, I plant after the first hard frost, and later is actually better when we’re up north… as having new roots and shoots growing too far out and being hit by a freeze can stunt them the following year.

Planting four to six weeks prior to when the ground freezes is common practice. For me, this timing is usually the end of October.

Add some compost to your 4–6” deep holes (or trench). Break individual cloves apart as you plant, leaving the papery covering intact. Plant around 4” deep, pointy side up. Space bulbs 6–9” apart in rows or a grid. Cover with soil. Then cover with 4–6” of straw or leaf mulch on top.

One of my secrets is using spent chicken coop straw to cover my garlic beds. I clean out the coop and use the poopy chicken straw to both insulate and fertilize my garlic. This works because of the long time (7+ months for us) between laying down the bedding and harvest time.

It is recommended to let chicken bedding compost at least 6 months, which is why this is the only place in the garlic I use spent chicken bedding. Plus, this way I don’t have to turn it in my compost pile, another win-win!

Covering the whole bed with some chicken wire, or anything that can keep curious squirrels from digging up the bulbs is a good plan too.

If you don’t do some kind of compost in the fall planting, you’ll want to add some nitrogen early in the spring once you see shoots emerge. You can either add a nitrogen heavy fertilizer or just a little straight blood meal.

I’ve got a fun Growing Great Garlic Video over on my YouTube Channel if you want to see planting, garlic scapes, harvesting and making garlic powder all in one video!

Michelle

Spring Has Sprung

Garlic is one of the first plants to get growing in the spring vegetable garden, it follows other alliums like chives and our Minnesota native ramps (more on foraging those HERE).

You garlic bed will appreciate being kept relatively weed free all season. But if you leave all or the majority of your mulch in place all season, you’ll be ahead of the weeding game! And, as long as it is well mulched, you don’t really need to water during the spring either.

Garlic Scapes!

Garlic scapes are of the best parts of growing garlic at home! Hard neck varieties will send up a central flower stalk, but if you catch them before the straighten out and flower, they are delicious! These will be ready to harvest in mid to late June, depending on the year.

I love garlic scapes so much I’ve got a full
Article on Garlic Scapes
with a recipe for garlic scape pesto too, YUM!

Michelle

Summer Is for Harvesting Garlic

Garlic Harvesting

Finally around the end of July (again, in Zone 4b) is when garlic is typically ready to harvest. A general rule of thumb is to wait until the lowest three leaves (which correlates to the three outermost wrappers on the garlic bulbs) have browned and dried. This is a good indicator as long as you haven’t hade an exceptionally wet or dry year. The idea is that as they mature, they start dying back (just like onion tops brown and flop over too). I always dig a ‘tribute’ bulb early on to check in and see how they’re doing.

Try to harvest when the weather has been dry for a bit. You can dig down to harvest, or if the soil is loose enough, just pull up and pop them out.

Curing Garlic for Long-Term Storage

If you grew enough to store long term, you’ll want to cure them as well. Curing garlic is simply leaving it a dark dry place so the wrappers, or outer leaves can dry and become that papery skin we’re familiar with. Keeping them in a single layer and not touching so they can dry evenly will help the process. I leave them in a covered shed on a wire shelf. Fortunately, no critters like to nibble these; in fact, they keep their distance!

If you use fresh garlic right after you harvest, you’ll notice the thicker skins and may not quite know where the garlic bulb starts and the skins (wrappers) end. You can absolutely use the garlic like this. Just try to make sure you get down to the bulb as the skins are tough and not tasty!

Being able to see the papery skins separate easily from the bulb is also a good indicator of when your garlic has fully cured. If the papery wrappers are easier to peel (at least with hard neck garlic) and it’s been at least 10 days in dry weather, or up to 20 in damp conditions, you can finish prepping your garlic for storage.

Sorting Bulbs

After the garlic is cured you’ll want to clean it so you can store it inside. This is simply brushing off any remaining dirt, snipping the leaf stalk off, and snipping the roots off. I tend to leave an inch or two of the stalk on the top as I find it is easier to break apart the bulb with this ‘handle’.

While you’re cleaning is the time to decide which bulbs to eat first, store, and save for seed. The smallest, or any bulbs with slightly damaged cloves are the ones you’ll want to put in the ‘eat first’ pile.

Next, set the biggest bulbs aside and then decide how many you want to save for planting again in a few months. The best to keep for long-term storage are good-sized bulbs that are fully wrapped in the papery skins.

Fall Is for Planting

(see above) and…

Storing Garlic

Store in a cool, dark place with relatively low humidity. The length of time your garlic will keep depends on many variables—from size of bulb, curing and storage surroundings—but hard neck will keep for up to 9 months before sprouting.

What to Do with Garlic in the Winter

Come winter you’ll want to check any remaining bulbs closely for green spouts peeking out. You can further preserve by peeling bulbs and freezing. I freeze whole cloves—easy to slice super thin for meals as I need. Some people prefer to mince and freeze.

Dehydrating Garlic

I love dehydrating garlic and making homegrown garlic powder! This is one of those full circle moments—being able to use garlic I grew in a form that seems so ‘grocery store’ and that will keep for another 6–9 months is one of my favorite things! Thinly slice on a mandolin, lay out on dehydrator trays and dehydrate until crispy, then pulverize. I used my old Nutri Bullet and it turns out perfect. So much more flavor than anything you can buy!

I hope this has inspired you to start growing your own garlic, or try some new varieties. You never know when we’ll need to be ready for that vampire apocalypse…

 

Dig Into Garlic,

Michelle