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Do you love garlic? If you’ve never had fresh garlic before you really should try to grow your own garlic. The taste is amazing really!
You’re in luck too because garlic has to be the easiest plant you can grow in your garden.
Why You Should Grow Your Own Garlic
If you’ve ever grown your own vegetables you know that there is a huge taste difference between a vegetable that is freshly picked before being eaten compared to a vegetable that was picked a week before under-ripe and trucked across the country to your local grocery store.
Garlic is just the same!
When you grow your own garlic you can enjoy it fresh from your garden starting in mid-July or dry and store it for winter use.
Types Of Garlic
Softneck Garlic
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Softneck garlic is best grown in areas where the winters are mild although it can be grown as low as zone 5.
Softneck garlic doesn’t need cold temperatures to stimulate the clove to sprout. Most softneck varieties do not produce scapes like the hardneck garlic do but they braid easily.
Hardneck Garlic
1 +Pound Fresh Spanish Roja Garlic Hard-neck BulbsChesnok Red Garlic, 2 Nice Bulbs. Great for Fall Planting! Non GMO1 +Pound Fresh Music Garlic Bulbs – Hardneck
Hardneck garlic needs a cold period to germinate so it’s best grown in northern climates.
If you would like to grow hardneck garlic and don’t live where you have a cold winter you can simulate this cold spell by placing your garlic cloves in a cool, dry area that is 7 C to 10 C for 3 weeks before planting.
Hardneck garlic produces scapes in mid-summer. In our zone 5 garden, this is early July. The Scapes are the flower of the hardneck garlic.
These need to be removed so the plant puts its energy into growing the bulb and not the flower. Luckily the scapes are a delicious treat and can be used for many recipes like my favorite garlic scape pesto!
Elephant Garlic
Elephant Garlic, 2 Huge Bulbs! Great for Planting, Eating or Cooking! Non GMO, Organic. Milder Tasting GarlicKentucky’s Best Elephant Garlic 2 Bulbs: Plant or Eat – Raw or Cooked, Non-GMO, All Natural
Elephant garlic produces a very large, mild-tasting clove. Each clove will have between 4 and 6 bulbs.
It’s hardy to zone 5 and like hardneck garlic, it needs a cold spell to germinate properly.
When To Plant Garlic
Garlic should be planted in the fall after your first frost has passed. In our zone 5 area of Ontario, we find the best planting time to be late September to mid-October.
Softneck garlic can also be planted early in the spring but will be ready to harvest later than fall-planted garlic.
Soil Preparation
Garlic is a very forgiving plant to grow. It really will grow just about anywhere you plant it but it prefers full sun and nice loose, loamy soil.
If your soil is hard-packed clay the bulbs might struggle to grow and expand.
Adding a few inches of compost to the top of your planting bed and then mulching well will really help your garlic to grow well if your natural soil is clay.
Preparing Garlic Bulbs For Planting
Before you can plant your garlic you need to separate the bulbs into cloves.
This is best done 24 hours or less before you are going to plant your garlic. It keeps the root nodules from drying out and your garlic will start to grow roots more easily.
For softneck garlic peel the outer layers of skin off and then gently pull the cloves apart.
To separate hardneck garlic you can do it the same way you separate softneck but there are 2 easier ways.
One method is to hold the garlic clove in one hand and with your other hand hold the neck/stem of the garlic bulb and shake the neck back and forth. This loosens the cloves from the stem.
Another easy way to separate hardneck garlic is to turn the bulb upside down and hit the neck part into a hard surface.
Then peel the loose skin off and the cloves should separate easily.
How To Plant Garlic
You can grow garlic in a single row, double rows or in wide square foot planting beds.
Garlic should be planted 4 to 8 inches apart depending on the variety.
If you grow garlic closer together you will have more bulbs per square foot but they may be smaller than garlic grown further apart. This will also depend on your soil type and how fertile your soil is.
In our Back to Eden style gardens, we mark out our planting area and then rake the woodchip mulch back off the bed. We then remove any weed seedlings that might have been starting to grow.
Then we make planting furrows 9 inches apart and 3 inches deep. Into these, we place the garlic bulbs using a 6-inch spacing.
Once the garlic has been set into the rows we cover the tops with 2 inches of soil and mulch.
That’s it now you just have to let winter’s cold temperatures do their job and wait for the garlic to start poking up from the soil in the spring.
Have your grown garlic before? What’s your favorite variety?
Kim Mills is a homeschooling mom of 6 and lives on an urban homestead in Ontario, Canada. Blogging at Homestead Acres she enjoys sharing tips to help you save money, grow and preserve your own food.
Donna White
Monday 17th of October 2022
Hi Kim, I recently planted some purple garlic which I purchased from a nursery and also planted some regular white garlic (from China)that I purchased in the store. They have already both sprouted and are growing. Should I just cover them with mouldy hay and leave them or what? First time trying to grow garlic. Is this going to be an epic fail? I think that I am in zone 6B.
Jeannine
Saturday 3rd of September 2022
I was really surprised when I read your article about planting in the fall. I usually get that information from people from the southern people. I live in michigan and I believe this is the first time I have read about fall planting in the north. Thank you.
Pamela
Tuesday 19th of October 2021
Nice post on planting garlic. I tried to grow it last year for the first time and it was a bust. I think we had a wet winter/early spring and my garlic got water logged. Where is a good place to buy the garlic to grow? I saw one place was selling it at astronomical prices. It isn't worth my while to pay those prices. Can you plant garlic you buy in grocery store? A lot of ours comes from China and I would prefer not using that, but if I could find some grown elsewhere would it work? Thanks
John
Tuesday 19th of October 2021
Awesome information! How about some tips for growing in the Central Florida area. Sand, Sand and more sand.
Heather-Wynne
Wednesday 13th of October 2021
Thanks, Kim, for the Fall potato and garlic planting tips. I have local, hard neck purple garlic and I have been hesitating on planting...now, with your help, I can do the fall planting.
Regards, Heather