Is it already time to plant garlic bulbs again? Where does the time go. It seems like it was just yesterday and I was harvesting garlic from our garden. Is it just me, or are there more things to do in the garden in the fall than in the Spring?
Growing garlic is very simple and straightforward. For starters you want to try and find certified garlic bulbs {most local nurseries have it in stock this time of year}. Some people just buy garlic bulbs at the grocery store, but a lot of times produce {even bulbs} can be sprayed to slow growth, so I like to buy certified garlic bulbs so I know exactly what I’m getting. Botanical Interests and Territorial Seed have a great selection.
To plant garlic, first break the bulb apart and inspect the cloves for any damage. Toss any cloves that are brown or have decay on them. Next, plant the garlic about 2″ deep and about 6″ apart in loose, well drained soil. Cover the bulbs with soil, water and walk away. Mother Nature will take care of the rest until spring. Unless of course you live somewhere where it never rains during the fall and winter months. If that’s the case, then be sure and give your garlic bed a drink every now and again.
Once the garlic begins to sprout in the spring, I like to cover my garlic patch with a couple inches of leaf litter to help insulate the garlic bulbs a bit from the cold {if you live in a warmer climate you don’t need to do this}.
I don’t know about you, but I use garlic practically every day in my cooking, so it’s really nice to be able to grow it in my backyard each year for a nice stash when I need it.
How to Grow Garlic
- Plant cloves 6 to 8 weeks before a hard freeze so the roots have a chance to get established
- Do not break cloves until you are ready to plant
- Plant cloves 2″ deep with the root end down and the point side up
- Space cloves 4″- 6″ apart {depending on size}
Will you be growing garlic this year?
How many bulbs do you usually by each year and when do YOU plant your garlic?
Looking for more information in growing, cultivating and enjoying garlic? Check out the book The Complete Book of Garlic By Ted Jordan Meredith. Amazon currently has it in stock and ready to ship.
Katie @ Life Lived Intentionally says
I planted my garlic about a week and a half ago and yesterday I found it coming up! This is my first year growing garlic, and after those terrible storms over the weekend (I’m in the PNW also), I thought they might have gotten too disturbed in the non-raised bed in which I planted them. Nope! They are happy and well! Now I need to mulch, though.
Mavis Butterfield says
Kate, just pile an inch or so of leaf litter on top and they will be fine. 🙂
Katie @ Life Lived Intentionally says
Our trees haven’t started dropping their leaves yet, but I’ll definitely save some for that! I love free and easy.
Barbara says
Going to try planting Garlic this year! When do you cut the scapes to use?
Mavis Butterfield says
after they have looped around twice. 🙂 2 circles… does that make sense?
Kim says
Do you take the paper jacket off the cloves before planting them? This will be my first attempt at growing garlic, and I can’t wait!!
Mavis Butterfield says
No. Just separate the cloves and plant {with paper jackets}.
Beth says
I would love to grow my own garlic! Currently I am doing container gardening. How well would it grow in a pot?
Denise says
I’m wondering the same thing … We might be selling our house and moving this winter, want to plant garlic…anyone tried it in pots?
Lauren says
I have them in plastic tubs, they are growing better than those in the ground. But my climate may vary slightly being in Australia!
Jessica says
I’ve read that if you regularly re-plant garlic that you grew in your garden (as opposed to buying new seed bulbs every year) that in a few years you will have bred your garlic to thrive under your own specific conditions, and it will get better and better each year.
Mavis Butterfield says
Really? I might have to go grab a head of garlic I dug up this summer and try and plant it.
Roo says
The best thing to do is to choose your best heads of garlic and replant those. Every year your garlic will improve. You know you didn’t spray those with any growth inhibitors. Unless you want to grow a new type of garlic or your garlic has a disease, there’s really no need to buy new seed garlic every year.
I’ve chosen my best bulbs to go in this fall. Even though I want to eat them because they’re GORGEOUS. I’m also planting more this year than I did last year. I’ll also be planting some garlic in a wilder area way out back to let go a little wild and harvest the scapes from because I love scapes. I had a neighbor that just let all her garlic grow wild in the back alley and we all got to harvest scapes and garlic from the area. The garlic regrew itself the next year.
Kim says
The squirrels here dig them up every time. I’m going to have to put a wire house over them if I try again. Between the squirrels, birds and chipmunks I had no luck this year at all.
Cecily says
I purchased my garlic at the Chehalis Garlic Festival this year. They had over 100 varieties to choose from. Needless to say It was difficult to choose which varieties I wanted to grow this year. I ended up getting Inchelium Red, Italian Purple, Kahlabar, St. Helen’s and Gretchen’s Grande. I planted 115 cloves last week. I spent less than $20 on the garlic and got to enjoy some great local music and eat yummy garlic themed food! I highly recommend attending next year.
Kaia says
Just bought my garlic yesterday.. now I need to get out and plant it!
Ellen in Clackamas says
Cecily when was the festival? Was it at the Fairgrounds? Might think about going next year. I have a pot with some wild garlic growing in it and am going to try and re-plant it. My brother says it is native to the Olympic Mountains.
Cecily says
Yes it was at the fairgrounds at the end of August
Susie in DeLand says
I’m curious, along with Beth & Denise, about growing garlic in containers. I have those large pots from Costco (same ones you grew your basil in this year, Mavis) and I’m thinking of planting a couple of them with garlic. Will they grow well in large pots? I’m in Central Florida, so it rarely hits freezing, though it will a few times during the winter.
Diane says
Susie, it seems to me that garlic would do OK in pots as long as you didn’t crowd it too much. My garlic always seems to do better in raised beds than in-ground, and a large pot isn’t that different from a small raised bed, is it? 😉
Thanks for reminding me, Mavis, that I need to haul myself out to the garden and plant this season’s garlic – rain or no rain!
julie says
We live in northwestern ohio and this will be the third year we planted garlic. we haVE reused the harvest to plant in the fall, and so far it has worked well. we harvested 86 bulbs out of 96 from the year before. the bulbs are a little small but excellent flavor. we plant them a little deeper than 2 inches here closer to 4 and it has come up very nicely. we planted the first of november last year and i think we will do the same this year. we used it in our dill pickles, salsa, spaghetti sauce, and all turned out very flavorful. good luck everybody, there is nothing like eating your own stuff always taste better…
Wynne says
I completely agree about the improved taste. I’ll probably triple the amount of garlic I plant this year–I ran out fast. But I won’t plant until November–my October planting last year was well-sprouted before winter began.
Elise says
Um. OK. Stupid new-bee question here (which I know you’ve answered somewhere else, just can’t get the energy to look for it. sorry)
When do you harvest the garlic? Can I use it as a winter crop, pull early enough to use the same area for spring/summer crops, or does it take until mid-summer to mature, tying up the bed the whole time? TIA!
Elise says
PS – I LOVE your blog, I’ve been reading it for about 6 months now. You are just amazing! So creative in everything you do.
Mavis Butterfield says
Hi Elise, I usually harvest my garlic in July. Here is the post I wrote –> http://www.onehundreddollarsamonth.com/how-to-harvest-and-store-garlic/
Dena says
If you missed the Chehalis Garlic Festival in WA, it’s on Aug 28 – 30, 2015.
Dale says
I bought 2 types of garlic (Chesnook and Duganski) from a local area farm at the new Eastside Urban Garden Center here in Olympia. I planted them last week and am hoping for the best. I’ve never tried to grow Garlic before so this will be fun. I planted about 150 cloves and am looking forward to see how they do.
Mavis Butterfield says
150? Wow! They’ll do great. This area is AWESOME for growing garlic. 🙂
Patricia says
I live in the Caribbean. I would love to try to grow garlic in a container on my patio (the garlic they sell here is from China), but I’m not sure if it will grow in this climate, what do you think? And if so, how much water does it need? Daily or weekly or biweekly? Thanks!
Lisa Millar says
I’ve been growing garlic the last few seasons… getting some hints from a cousin that has been growing it in a much bigger way (that is I think she [put in about 8000 this season!)
Apparently garlic likes a ‘sweeter’ soil, so dusting the area with lime prior to planting – digging and watering it in – really has helped. Apart from fertilising with whatever you use, we also mulch with seaweed. So those of you by the ocean… make the most of what is at hand!
I love having heaps of garlic at hand!
Mavis Butterfield says
8000? Holy cats!
Lisa Millar says
Yup! We are serious about our garlic around here! 🙂
Mary says
I love planting garlic- put it in the ground and ignore it (pretty much) till the scapes are ready- how easy is that? Last year I planted about 50 cloves, and got 40 some heads of yummy garlic. The garlic grower at the Lac La Hache garlic festival told me not to plant it in the same spot every year and to save some of my best bulbs to use as cultivars. As soon as the rain stops, this year’s crop goes into the ground!
Mavis Butterfield says
I love how easy it is to grow garlic. 🙂 If only tomatoes were that easy to grow.
Dale Ann says
I’ve been growing garlic from the same bulb I purchased at our local organic food store almost 30 years ago. Each fall I pick out the biggest, healthiest cloves from the summer’s crop to replant.
3 years ago I experimented with allowing the scapes to mature, then planted the largest of the seed bulbs that appeared on top. In one year each seed bulb produced a garlic bulb containing one clove. I left them in the ground for another year, and by the fall of the second year each one of those single clove bulbs grew into full size bulbs.
So if one had the time and space to have two garlic beds, you can plant seed bulbs every year and use all of your full size bulbs for eating. The first year (fall) you would plant your cloves and your seed bulbs. The second year (late summer/fall) you would harvest the bulbs grown from cloves, and replant another bed of seed bulbs. By the third year at harvest time you could harvest the now full size garlic bulbs grown from the first planting of seed bulbs, and again plant another crop of seed bulbs. Repeating the same process every year.
I find my garlic doesn’t grow larger by removing the scapes, but that the size depends more on my soil conditions, water, and weather during the growing season. So leaving scapes on for seed bulbs works fantastic for me.
nathalie jones says
silly question what are scapes??
Diane says
Scapes are the “flower stalks” of hardneck garlic plants (though they don’t produce flowers). You’ll see them come up from the center of the leaves maybe a month or so after the leaves emerge (mine usually show up in May). They’re a curlicue shape with a little “arrow” on the end. It’s best to cut them off before they curl into more than one circle, because the scapes will take energy from the garlic bulb.
Don’t throw the scapes away, though – you can use them as you would green onions, sauteed in vegie dishes or scrambled eggs or whatever. I’ve even made garlic scape pesto, and it’s delicious.
Ranger says
Ive grown garlic for 4 years, usually I leave them in the ground…forever…and they get bigger clumps, but if I do have to dig them to use I put them in water and they grow indoors all summer. I plant/replant in Mid-Oct, but I’m in TX and it doesn’t freeze until Jan/Feb. I grow soft neck so I don’t get scapes or flowers which is why I grow some indoors for the greens, if any, and I can pot those up whenever I want.
I’m starting a food forest in my small backyard so I don’t plan on pulling anything unless I absolutely need room, I’ll just let everything flower, drop seeds, spread everywhere and fill in the empty spaces with whatever. Of course my herbs and flowers are mixed into my veggie beds.