In addition to its culinary benefits, garlic is also surprisingly simple to cultivate in the home garden. It’s preferable to plant it in the autumn. Find out when and how to grow garlic to get the most out of your investment!
When it’s late summer or early fall, most gardens are filled with ready-to-eat and winter-storage-ready vegetables. Gardeners may find this time of year to be one of their most fruitful, as the results of their labors are beginning to bear fruit. As a result, preparing the garden for fall garlic planting is one of the last things on their minds.
The winter or very early spring is the preferred time of year for the majority of vegetable gardeners to organize their plots. As a result, they frequently forget the fact that garlic is best planted in the fall. Strong-tasting and durable garlic bulbs can grow to enormous sizes if planted in the fall in areas like Canada and the northern United States. Overwintering garlic may be accomplished in virtually any region of the country, even in the far north, with only a little bit of extra care.
When is the best time of year to grow garlic?
In most places, fall is the ideal season to plant garlic. Garlic should not be planted until after the autumnal equinox, which is at the end of September. When it comes to the Allium family, like onions and other plants, garlic is sensitive to day length and matures during the longest days of the summer. It gets a head start on the growing season by planting it in the fall, and it will be one of the first plants to sprout in the spring.
Planting Garlic
Garlic is a simple plant to grow, but the best and largest bulbs will only come from well-prepared soil. A pH of 6.4-6.8 is ideal for these plants, which thrive in well-drained, well-cultivated soil. Before planting, add 2-3 inches of compost and well-rotted manure.
Plant several different varieties of garlic from high-quality seeds just in case one doesn’t thrive. Keep the cloves from drying out by separating them no more than 48 hours before planting. Bulb size is inversely proportional to the size of the cloves. The sharp end of each clove should be pointed upwards while planting the cloves.
Use a seedless straw to create a 5- to 8-inch layer of mulch on top of the soil. In the spring, it will have compacted to a depth of about 2 inches, which will aid in weed control during the growing season. Before the ground freezes solid, your garlic will begin to produce roots, but there will be little or no top growth.
As soon as the ground thaws next spring, the garlic you planted will sprout small green shoots and begin growing.
Keeping Garlic Plants in Top Shape
When new shoots appear in the spring, feed the plants with a liquid fish emulsion fertilizer every other week until about June 1. Getting an inch of water each week, including rainfall, is ideal during the bulb-forming stage in early June.
During the summer solstice, if you’re growing hard neck garlic (the ideal type for New England), you’ll notice a seed stalk, or scape, coming up. Plants need to be encouraged to devote all of their energy to bulb production by cutting this off.
These stalks are tasty because they form a loop. Chop them up and use them in salads, stir-fries, soups, and scrambled eggs, among other dishes. Pesto is made even better by blending them with olive oil and parmesan cheese in a blender.
You can tell when it’s time to harvest your garlic by leaving one or two blossom stalks standing. Garlic bulbs’ outer wrappers begin to dry about four weeks before harvest, so stop watering in July. The wrapper can become stained or moldy if there is too much water present at that point.
Three Essential Steps:
(1) Calendar Year of Planting
Garlic can be planted in the fall, although the timing depends on where you live and the environment. As much root growth as possible should be achieved before winter so that the cloves do not emerge from the ground and produce green top growth. If you want your cloves to have enough time to establish roots before the cold weather sets in, you may plant them anywhere from mid-September to the end of November.
As a general rule, garlic should be planted in Canada around October 15. As a general rule, however, this conventional wisdom may not be appropriate for every situation.
Garlic planting can begin as early as September 15th and continue through the end of October in cooler zone 2 and 3 locations including Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Northern Ontario, and portions of British Columbia (or until the ground freezes).
Planting can begin as early as early October in warmer places like southern Ontario, Quebec, coastal British Columbia, the Maritime provinces, and much of the Northern United States. The fact that some green top growth is visible above the soil level in the winter does not mean that garlic is doomed. Over the winter, the green leaves may die back, but in the spring, the cloves will sprout new leaves.
(2) The Depth of Planting
A typical garlic planting depth is between 1 and 3 inches. Several factors influence how deep you should plant garlic cloves.
As a starting point, think about the type of soil that you have. Overwintering the garlic in clay soils or places that receive a lot of rain might cause the garlic to deteriorate in early spring or during wet weather. Drought stress might occur if you plant too shallowly in sandy or well-drained soil.
It’s not uncommon for growers to plant deeper than 3 feet in some cases “Only very dry sandy soils, however, will work with this technique Any depth greater than or equal to 3 “when the plants emerge from the earth, they will have to expend significant energy, which will reduce their bulb growth potential in the fall.
Secondly, you should think about the local climate. The deeper a garlic clove is buried, the better protected it is from the elements during the winter months. There is less of a concern about planting depth in warmer places like the west coast or in areas with a lot of snowfall. Planting on the deeper side can help shield the cloves from the winter cold in places like the prairies or where there are several freezing/thawing cycles. At a 2 meter depth, “Garlic has a good chance of surviving the winter if planted deep enough. Nonetheless, “Without a heavy mulch layer, the more exposed sections are susceptible to winter kill.
(3) Protection Against the Cold in the Winter
Covering the garlic with mulch, such as straw, hay, or leaves, is highly recommended in the colder regions of Canada and several northern states. Mulching isn’t necessary for milder locations like southern Ontario, but it can help shield the garlic from freeze/thaw cycles and keep the soil warmer so that the roots can continue growing into early winter.
Late fall (often November) is the best time of year for mulching. In order to keep the bulbs from decaying in warm and damp soil, this delay will be beneficial. Because of the risk of mold growth, mulching isn’t a good idea in areas with warm winters like the tropics (especially on clay soils).
Remove the mulch as soon as possible in the spring. The removal of the snow and ice will speed up the warming process. Depending on the temperature, mulch can either be used as a compost pile or reapplied to garlic in the summer.
Pests and Diseases of Garlic
Don’t plant it if you have had problems with wireworms or nematodes. Garlic has few pests. Poorly draining soils have a higher risk of disease.
Garlic Harvesting: When and How
When the bottom third to half of the leaves have turned brown and withered, but the higher leaves are still green, harvest your garlic.
The flower stalks come in helpful when trying to figure out exactly when to harvest. Harvesting is complete when the leaves turn brown and the scapes uncurl and stand upright.
Garlic Storage
To cure, hang fresh garlic bunches for 3-4 weeks to dry in a cool, well-ventilated, shady location. Remove any loose soil from the leaves, roots, and outer wrappers before storing. Trim the roots to 1/4 inch and cut the tops back to an inch or two above the bulb. Hard neck garlic can be stored for five months and soft neck for eight months under ideal conditions of near-freezing temperatures and 65-70 percent humidity.
Replant your largest cloves the following year after saving them. In the old days, garlic was said to “learn” since it adapts to the environment in which it grows and improves over time. Don’t miss out on this fall’s opportunity to grow some garlic!
