Growing Your Own Garlic Saves Money (and It’s Easy)
Garlic is something of a garden anomaly. It’s planted in the fall and then hung until mid-summer and harvested in time to give you a tiny window to grow something else before fall arrives and it’s time to replant. However, it is one of the easiest plants to grow with exceptional yields. If you, like me, use garlic regularly, you should definitely try this crop if you are willing to give it its own bed.
Garlic seeds are simply garlic cloves.
Unlike real seeds, most people plant garlic cloves to produce a garlic harvest. In fact, if you buy garlic at a garden center, you will notice that it is similar to the garlic you buy at the store. Once you’ve harvested your first harvest, you’ll realize how cost-effective it is to save a few of the heads you’ve grown, divide them, and replant them. Every year you get more garlic. Although you can buy cloves at a garden center or online, many people also plant regular garlic at the store, and that too has a relatively high yield.
When choosing the cloves that you are going to plant, you need to choose the best and fleshiest cloves that will produce the best heads of garlic. When dividing cloves in the garden, I put the smallest cloves in my pocket, bring them inside and use them for dinner.
Technically, there are two types of garlic: softneck and hardneck. The collar is the stalk that rises up through the center of the garlic. Soft neck garlic has a neck that can be cut, while hard neck garlic does not. Soft neck tends to be ready for harvest sooner, while hard neck tends to last longer after drying. Technically, the soft neck of garlic is easier to braid into those garlic wreaths you see, but as an experienced braider, I did the same with the hard neck of garlic (although it is more difficult to do).
I prefer the flavor and longevity of hardneck garlic, and although I have grown this variety in the past, I am now in my third year of growing only Music, a common variety of garlic. It reliably produces flavorful heads, and while I sometimes prefer spicier garlic like Spanish Roja , the heads they produce are smaller in size.
Garlic needs space and good soil.
Garlic grows in the summer, but you plant in the fall and it stays in the ground through the winter. If you missed the window, you have a second chance to plant it in early spring, but the sooner the better.
Garlic needs loose, loamy, rich soil. Here you should focus on good compost and start with a well-cultivated bed. A slow-release fertilizer is ideal for soil application and tillage.
Every year the soil in your garden bed becomes compacted and you lose some soil when you harvest. Typically you fill your garden beds with compost. I don’t do this, which means my beds are a bit low when it comes time to plant garlic. I smooth out the bed and sprinkle it with fertilizer. Then I take the cloves and plant them in a grid about eight inches apart. From the plant, I take each clove, still in its paper cocoon, and stick it into the soil with the pointed tip facing up so that it is visible above the soil. This is so you can see where each one is located. I then cover the entire bed with a few inches of compost. Then I cover it with a few inches of mulch. (I use wood chips.)
How to scare away squirrels for the winter
Squirrels and other animals are not particularly attracted to garlic, but they are drawn to nice places to tuck the nuts. If you don’t protect your garlic bed, you’ll see a bunch of holes dug in the mulch, but I’ve developed the perfect foil. I cut a piece of hardware to the size of the bed, then laid it across the bed and screwed it down. The holes are large enough for the garlic shoots to sprout, and by the time the garlic outgrows the fabric (that you roll), it will be spring and the garlic will have a chance to fight the squirrels.
Garlic has two harvests: stalks and heads.
Plants germinate to form seeds. Plants are not very good at multi-tasking, so they tend to only be able to focus on one thing at a time. Forming roots, forming greenery/flowers or forming seeds. Once they start producing seeds, the rest of the plant is ready. To get really good, big bulbs of garlic, you need to stop the plant from producing seeds—and luckily, garlic does this easily and deliciously. In early summer, the plants will grow a hard stem, which, once it reaches a certain height, will curl like a pig’s tail. At the end you will be able to see the flower bud. This is a landscape . Be sure to remove this shoot before the flower opens as this is where the seeds come from. The trick is to wait long enough for the shoot to become edible. This will happen within a week or so in the garden bed, so you should check daily, but be sure to wait until the stem has formed a q-shape. Then break it off as close to the base as possible.
The real harvest comes in midsummer when it is time to harvest the bulbs. By this point, each bulb will have tall green stems rising from the soil. The outside of the stem has papery layers, like an onion. The rule is: when the bottom two or three sheets/layers turn brown, it’s time to start.
When harvesting, do not pull the garlic by the necks – use a hand shovel. Holding the neck, slide the shovel vertically down a few inches until it is as deep in the soil as possible, then push it toward the stem. This will loosen the garlic so you can pull it out. Be methodical as you move along the grid.
Processing your landscapes
The shoots have a sharp and concentrated taste. While some people fry or marinate them, my favorite recipe is to make them into kosho , a recipe I use fromJori Jane Emde . Grind the petioles in a blender or food processor, then weigh them and add 20% salt to them. Mix well and leave to ferment in a jar. She leaves it on the shelf for a few weeks before moving it to the refrigerator, but at this salt level I find it shelf stable so it stays there all year. In six months it will become a spectacular paste that can be used as a rub for any protein or as a base for soups or sauces.
Treatment of garlic
The heads themselves need some work as they emerge from the soil. They need to be cured to last for several months. This involves peeling the garlic and then exposing it to a fresh breeze in dry but cool conditions. To peel garlic, pull off the lowest leaves, leaving a nice, clean bulb.
If you are going to braid the garlic, leave the stem and braid it. If you’ve ever French braided your hair, use the same method. Start with three heads of garlic in a simple braid. At each subsequent crossing, add a head of garlic, and add a stalk to the crossed handful. At the end, continue braiding without adding more garlic, and then tie the braid with twine or a stem knot.
The garlic does not have to be braided – it can simply be stored. In this case, cut it five inches above the bulb.
Regardless of your method, you’ll need to place the garlic in a ventilated but dry place—inside or covered—and hang it so that air moves around the entire bulb. So spread them out or use a wire mesh suspended in the air into which you stick the heads of garlic. If you have braided garlic, hang it up.
When the entire stem is brown and the outer layers are papery, the garlic is ready. This takes from two weeks to a month. Once hardened, garlic should be stored in a cool and ventilated place.
Long-term storage
The best solution for long-term storage if you feel your garlic starting to sprout or turn over is to process it into your own garlic powder. Once you’ve peeled all the garlic and sufficiently dehydrated it, you can then grind it into a powder that’s perfectly storeable, as long as you’ve actually dried it.