Tips for planting garlic
Published 12:58 pm Friday, October 17, 2008
Garlic is super easy to grow, it hardly takes any space in the garden and it may help deter some pests when it’s planted next to other crops.
In our area you can plant it now and it will spend all fall and winter developing a strong root system before taking off in the spring. A green shoot several feet tall pushes through the soil and produces an attractive globe-shaped flower. I plant lettuce and other crops with shallow roots around the garlic.
I saw this material and wanted to share.
Ted Meredith, author of “The Complete Book of Garlic” (Timber Press, 2008), offers these tips for planting garlic:
Avoid planting garlic that was purchased from a grocery store. It may have been treated with growth suppressants or stored in a way that will make it grow poorly.
Much more interesting and better tasting garlic cultivars that are suitable for planting can often be found at local farmers’ markets as well as from many specialty garlic growers through mail order or the Internet. The Complete Book of Garlic has a listing of sources.
Separate the cloves of garlic and discard any that look unhealthy. The biggest cloves will produce the biggest bulbs. One clove produces one bulb at harvest.
Plant the cloves in a sunny location, root end down, pointed tip up, 2 to 3 inches deep, at a spacing of 10 inches between rows and 6 inches within the rows.
Garlic will grow in poor soil, but for the best crop plant in loose loamy soil with near-neutral pH. In general, good garden soil is good garlic growing soil.
Garlic is not a heavy nitrogen feeder, but composted manure worked into the soil at planting adds both tilth and fertilizer. Garlic immediately begins growing underground, though aboveground growth may not be visible until spring.
If your winters are very cold or very dry, add a layer of mulch to your garlic beds to protect the garlic against freezing or drying, or being heaved out of the ground by heavy frosts. A loose mulch, such as straw, works well.
