How to Plant Garlic

How to Plant Garlic This Fall

Garlic is a member of the Allium family, which also includes onions, scallions, shallots and leeks. It is a very long season crop, meaning that it takes a long time to mature in the garden.

Why plant in the fall?

Garlic grows best when planted in the fall because it requires vernalization to grow properly.  Vernalization is a horticultural term that means that it will grow best after prolonged exposure to cold temperatures.  In the case of garlic, this exposure to cold helps initiate cell division, leading to a large head of garlic with numerous cloves.  Each individual clove of garlic you plant will yield an entire head/bulb of garlic the following season. 

How to plant garlic

1. Choose your seed stock. Look for seed garlic at a local nursery or online. If you can’t find any, you can plant organic garlic from the produce section of your grocery store. Choose tight heads with large, firm cloves.

2. Prepare the soil. Loosen the soil, check the pH, and mix in compost or a balanced fertilizer.

3. Plant the cloves. Set them pointy side up, 5–6 inches apart and 2–3 inches deep, depending on the size of the clove. The top of each clove should sit under at least 1 inch of soil. If your ground freezes and thaws regularly, plant a little deeper so the cloves aren’t pushed out of the soil as temperatures change.

4. Watch for shoots. They should start to emerge in early spring!

5. Feed in spring. Once the shoots are up, side-dress with a balanced granular fertilizer.

Hardneck vs. softneck

Garlic comes in two general categories: hardneck and softneck (there is also a type called elephant garlic, but this is not a “true” garlic and has somewhat different cultural needs, so we are not including it in our discussion).  If you have room, I’d recommend planting both hardneck and softneck garlic in the home garden. 

Hardneck garlic has a stiff central stem and fewer, larger cloves than softneck. Its storage life is shorter, so it’s usually grown for specialty markets such as restaurants and farmers markets. Many people feel it has better flavor and is easier to peel. Hardneck is also the source of garlic scapes, the coveted edible flower stalk the plant sends up in late spring.

Softneck garlic has a flexible central stem, and its bulbs tend to have many small cloves and thick wrapper skins. It stores well, which is why it’s the type you’ll most often find at the grocery store.

Spring garlic, growing well along drip tape. Garlic appreciates consistent watering, so we plant them along drip tapes and turn on the irrigation in the late spring.

Great varieties to plant this fall

• Hardneck: German White, Georgian Fire, Chesnok Red

• Softneck: Polish White, Inchelium Red
  

Saving your own garlic seed

We now plant our fall garlic from the heads we harvest each summer! All you need is a handful of extra disease-free heads to supply yourself with great seed garlic next fall. If you’d like to grow your own garlic seed, pop in a few extra plants this fall and read on to learn more about saving your own garlic seed!

The number of cloves varies from head to head, but we plan on 5–9 good, plantable cloves per head. Hardneck garlic almost always produces fewer cloves per head than softneck varieties.

Choosing which heads to save:
Save your best, not your leftovers. Garlic is grown from cloves, so each new plant is a copy of its parent, and big, healthy heads tend to produce big, healthy heads.

• Pick the largest, firmest heads from your most vigorous plants.

• Check each one closely. The wrappers should be intact, the cloves firm, and the flat base where the roots grew should be clean and solid.

• Set aside anything soft, moldy, discolored or damaged for the kitchen.

Garlic and onions sharing a raised bed. We try to always cluster our alliums, and rotate these crops to different beds each year to protect against soil-borne diseases.

Store your seed heads whole in a cool, dry, airy spot, out of the fridge. Wait to separate the cloves until a day or two before planting, then plant the biggest ones and eat the small ones.

When not to save your seed:
Because each clove is a piece of the parent plant, it can carry that plant’s problems into next year’s bed. A few cases call for caution:

• Soil-borne disease. If plants yellowed and died back early, or the heads came up with rotting roots, white fluffy mold, or tiny black specks at the base, don’t replant from that crop. Diseases like white rot travel on cloves and can persist in soil for many years. Start again with clean seed stock from a reputable grower, and plant it in a different bed.

• Rust. Rust shows up as orange, powdery spots on the leaves. It lives on the foliage and spreads on the wind, so the cloves themselves aren’t usually the way it returns. A light case late in the season is generally no reason to give up on saving seed. A heavy case is different: it weakens the plant and shrinks the heads, and small heads make poor seed. If rust hit hard, save only your largest heads, peel away the loose outer wrappers before storing, and clear all the old leaves out of the garden.

• Gradual decline. If your heads get a little smaller each year despite good care, viruses or pests may be building up in your saved stock. Buying fresh seed garlic from your local nursery or trusted supplier every few years is an easy reset.

Give garlic a new bed each year:
Whether your seed is saved or bought, avoid planting garlic where garlic, onions, leeks or shallots grew in the last three to four years. Rotation is the simplest protection you have against soil-borne problems.

Happy planting!

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