Pop this onion relative into the ground in fall, then harvest delicious cloves the following year.
Garlic is also one of theeasiest vegetables to grow in your garden, even in a small space.
Here’s what you should probably know to successfully grow garlic at home.
Credit: Lynn Karlin
When to Plant Garlic
Garlic is best planted in the fall and harvested the following summer.
After planting, each clove of garlic will begin developing a healthy root system in the cool soil.
Pick a plantingspot in full sunthat has moist butwell-drained soil.
Credit: Bill Hopkins
If your soil leans more to the soggy side, araised bedis your best option.
Heads of garlic are made up of individual bulbs or cloves attached at the base.
Separate the cloves from the head at planting time.
Place cloves in the ground pointy end up.
After planting your garlic, spreada couple of inches of mulchover the soil.
This will help prevent damage to the plants from sudden cold spells in fall or spring.
Mulch will also deter weeds in spring and help the soil conserve moisture.
A loose straw mulch works well.
For best harvests, feed your garlic abalanced fertilizerin early spring and again in mid-spring.
Then stop watering in July to allow the foliage to die back before harvest.
This causes the plant put more energy into the clove so you have better harvests.
Plus, the scapes are also edible and have a mildgarlic flavor.
Try using thescapes in your favorite pesto recipefor a taste of what’s to come.
This tells you they’re reaching maturity.
Wait until about half of the leafy growth has turned brown, usually sometime in August or September.
If not, wait another week and check again.
Leave the stems attached and brush off as much soil as possible.
you could either spread the heads out on a flat surface, or hang them up by the stems.
it’s possible for you to even get fancy and braid your garlic to cure and store it.
Properly cured and stored garlic will usually keep for about 6 months.
Hardneck typesproduce stiff stalks can make them difficult to braid.
Hardneck types are hardier, making them good choices to grow in Northern gardens.
Softneck typestypically do best in Southern gardens.
They usually don’t produce a flowering scape.
Their cloves tend to be smaller but more numerous than those of hardneck types.
Dozens of varieties of thesegarlic typesoffer different flavors, sizes, colors, and harvest times.
It even has ahandy chart of popular varietiesto try, complete with descriptions of their different flavors.
