When you prepare your garden, you will plant vegetables that you will use all the time. You won’t run out of space growing eggplant if you only eat it three times a year. Maybe you should grow garlic this year. It’s easy, it’s fun and you can use it to give other beautiful hair as gifts.
Depending on where you live, the general rule of thumb is sow garlic in the fall, and harvest on August 4th. I thought that since I lived in the Florida Tropics, where it never got cold enough to damage the root crops, I could just plant garlic whenever the heck I felt like it. I’m dead wrong.
If you follow these tips on how to grow garlic, you can avoid rookie mistakes.
How to Allium: When?
Garlic is a cold crop. For the best results, it should be sown in the fall, and a few weeks to store some strength, before they rest in the cold. A lot of root crops in the fall are always good, but there are some who have had success without mulching.
The best way for garlic growers to start is to sow their garlic beds two months before they intend to plant by working the soil until it is loose and adding compost .
As to Allium: Where?
In the spring, when the earth melts, garlic loves the sun, the better it is, the warmer it is. Plant onions in good soil (scaly and without stones), with good drainage. Garlic does not like to be wet.
How about Allium: Softneck or Hardneck?
There are two types of garlic you can grow. Softneck is what you have in the grocery store. It is very easy to plant, very easy to grow, and has a very long shelf life. It can tolerate a wide range of growing conditions and is earlier than hardy types of garlic. Most people feel that it is a little spiky. The three most outstanding varieties are Silverskin, Artichoke and Turban. If you are interested in making garlic hair, this type of garlic is perfect for you.
Hardneck garlic has larger and fewer cloves. The paper cover is less dense, which means it doesn’t store well. There are three common varieties for the home gardener: Purple Stripe, Porcelain and Rocambole. Hardneck garlic is milder, and many elites prefer garlic.
Hardneck garlic sends out a tightly knotted central stem called a stem. If it is left alone, the scape will drop and flourish. Most manufacturers feel that this rake will weaken the power from the bulb, and remove it after it has fallen off. But don’t throw it away like food.
How to grow garlic: Plant
The garlic they grow is the same as the garlic you cook, and it grows in the same way in the head (and is called a bulb). Once you start growing your own garlic, you’ll never have to buy it again to perpetuate itself.
Do not crack the bulb open until you are ready to plant. To open a garlic head image, place it on a firm surface, place both hands over the head (as if doing CPR) and apply pressure until you hear a pop. Separate the cloves, but do not peel them. Carnations are also said to “kill.” Place the set 1′ apart (the spikes end up). Plant each 1″-2″ tall, and if planting more than one row, space them 4″-6″.
Mulch will help protect your garlic from the elements.
How to grow garlic: Feed, water and maintain
After a week or so, feed your garlic with a high phosphorus fertilizer. Phosphorus promotes healthy roots. Since your garlic will be underground all winter, it is important to feed them.
Eventually you will start to see green shoots poking through the mulch. If you get impatient, you can pull back a little of the mulch to see how it will turn out. When you see green shoots, dress your garlic with a fertilizer higher in nitrogen, so that nitrogen promotes the happy plant we see above ground.
Water as needed, but the topsoil dries out between waterings. Drinking too much can make it rot and make it vulnerable to rust.
Garlic bugs don’t like it, but you’ll have to keep an eye out for the white rot fungus. This can happen if garlic is planted that does not come from a certified plant, or if the growing conditions are too humid. If you have healthy soil and don’t have too much water, this won’t be a problem.
How to grow garlic: harvesting
At the end of your garlic’s growing cycle, some of the leaves will turn brown or yellow. Now is a good time to stop drinking. Determining when to harvest your garlic can be a little difficult. Pluck it too early, and you’ll lose heads of growth in a few days. Rescue him too late, and your heads will be split. When the leaves are about 20% browned and dried, it is a good time to start. When in doubt, pull one out.
The easiest way to get your garlic out of the ground is to loosen the soil in the garlic head with a garden fork. Then gently pull them out and shake off the dirt. I will not wash them with water.
Taking care to dry the garlic heads in a shady place. Do not leave garlic freshly out in the sun or get burnt. Healing can take as little as three weeks or as long as two months, depending on the weather. When they are cured, loosen the skins around their heads and, if necessary, clean them using soft brushes. If you don’t intend to root your garlic, you can cut off the tops 1″-2″ above the neck of the garlic and roughly trim the roots.
Store in brown paper bags (lunch bags work great), mesh bags or old panty hose.
If you want to try your hand at garlic braiding, leave the tops. For a fantastic free recipe for garlic braiding, check out: http://www.bloomingfieldsfarm.com/garbrdhow.html
How to Grow Garlic: A Plan for Next Year
Before you start looking around or eating your garlic, there’s one thing you need to do. You need to decide which of your fat, succulent heads of garlic you are going to use for planting. Remember that big, fat cloves produce big cloves. You usually save the best heads for replanting. Garlic heads have anywhere from 20 to 40 cloves in them and you can grow another head from each clove. Once you learn how to grow garlic, you will never need to sit another one to plant.
How to grow garlic: Is it worth it?
One head of garlic will give you an average of 30 (cloves). And each set will provide you with a head of garlic for each clove planted. Garlic heads from seed catalogs cost about $4.90. So each head will cost you 16 cents. Most people don’t buy garlic at the grocery store by the pound, they usually get three or four for an average price here in tropical Florida of about 30 cents a head. So, 30 heads of garlic would retail for $9.
But consider this: the average cost of a plate of garlic is about $20 (plus shipping) and 18-20 bulbs of garlic. If you were to make your own garlic cloves with 20 heads of garlic, it would only cost you $3.20 per clove of garlic. Now that’s a fantastic savings!
If you want to grow your own garlic, consider this: a dozen cloves of garlic crawled into a baking dish. Each head was dipped in bright green oil and roasted in a 350 degree oven for one hour. Take a piece of toasted bread, lightly butter it, then press the garlic into your bread until it’s browned and softened. The knife helps to spot the very part of the goodness. You take a first breath and slowly open your mouth to spit and bite. Close your eyes. Elation, your garlic name.
