How to Grow the Garlic herb.

Growing Garlic

Why Grow Garlic
Garlic was originally a native plant of many thousands of years ago. Evidence of it has been found in caves inhabited more than 10,000 years ago.

GROWING GARLIC
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Garlic Folklore
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Latin Name
Allium sativum

Type
Hardy perennial of onion family

Site and Soil
Well-drained, well-dug fertile soil; full sun

Plant to Harvest Time
10 months.

Medicinal prescriptions were found chiseled into a clay Sumerian tablet that was more than 3,000 years old. Garlic is a key ingredient to a wide variety of recipes, and is quickly becoming regarded as a natural method to prevent heart disease and cancer - it is after all the second oldest medicine in the world.

Growing garlic is well-suited to both the first time gardener and the more experienced - given the correct soil and planting time, common garlic is relatively maintenance free, yet some of the more unusual varieties provide a challenge.

Where To Grow Garlic
Grow your garlic in full sun - garlic needs to grow quickly in order to produce good sized bulbs. Pick a site that is not prone to water-logging, this will ensure the bulbs do not rot over winter.

Garlic can be planted in raised beds and they will grow very well. Click here to go to our page on raised beds.

Plant Garlic
The secret to growing garlic is to plant it in mid October - spring planting is possible in warmer areas, but even then, better sized bulbs will result from an autumn sowing. Dig the soil well to a spade's depth before planting, incorporating as much organic matter as possible to assist with drainage - garlic will rot in water-logged conditions. If you can purchase and dig in some sand (from your garden centre) at this stage, the drainage will be improved even further. A couple of handfuls of bonemeal should also be incorporated every square metre (yard).

garlic picture, the garlic bulb and a clove Garlic bulbs for planting in Spring need not be bought from a nursery - simply choose the largest ones possible from your greengrocer or supermarket. If planting in mid October, choose a hardier variety such as 'White Pearl', these need to bought from your local garden centre. Each bulb will consist of up to 20 individual cloves, and it is these cloves which are to be individually planted. Gently remove the outer skin from the bulb (not the cloves) and separate into individual cloves - see the picture on the left. On the right is a garlic clove and on the left is the bulb. Select the largest eight or so of the cloves which will be on the outside of the bulb.

Plant each of the cloves in an upright position 2cm (1in) below the soil surface. Looking at the clove in the picture to the right, the bottom blunt end of the clove should be lowest in the ground with the pointed end just below the soil surface.

Space each clove about 10cm (4in) apart. If you are planting rows, space each row 45cm (18in) apart.

Care of Garlic

Garlic thrives on a well fed soil at the correct time, so in late March and again in mid May, feed the soil with general purpose fertiliser such as Growmore. If you can do this once or twice a month, so much the better. Apart from this, their only other requirement is to keep them free of weeds and in dry conditions water them. They will produce green foliage starting around April time.

Click picture of foliage on Garlic 'Supreme' to enlarge it.

Harvest Garlic
Garlic is normally ready for harvesting when most of the foliage has turned yellowy-brown - this will be around mid August time. The problem with harvesting garlic is knowing when they are ripe - harvest too early and the bulbs will be small, harvest too late and the bulb will have split making harvest difficult and the cloves of low quality (they will have commenced their growing cycle for next year).

Problems will occur mainly in wet summers - the leaves may only have started to turn yellow but if the garlic is left in wet ground at this stage, the bulbs will very quickly become diseased. For this reason a second method is needed to determine what stage they have reached. If the weather is wet in early August, pull up one bulb and see how many sheaths (very thin papery layers around the bulb) you can peel off the bulb - if there are only three, harvest the bulbs, if there are four or more, wait another two weeks or until most of the leaves have turned brown.

When harvesting garlic bulbs, gently ease them out of the ground with the assistance of using a trowel to loosen the surrounding soil - be careful not to bruise them with the trowel because they will then not keep for long.

garlic picture - fresh or wet garlic is the cook's ideal

The absolutely best garlic is fresh from the ground (known as wet garlic). This garlic is sweeter, less pungent and far more digestible than dried garlic. So make sure you use some cloves as soon as possible. The majority though should be be washed and dried and then placed in a warm dry place in the garden (bring indoors if rain threatens) to dry out - these bulbs should keep in good condition for 3 months or more.

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