the GoodEater Collaborative

Author: Stefan Schachter (4 Articles)

Stefan is the founder and president of EcoTeas, a top-selling organic and fair trade U.S. tea brand specializing in yerba mate. Stefan J. Schachter was born in Nyack, NY and received his BA in psychology from Stanford University, and holds a certificate in ecological horticulture from UC Santa Cruz.

As an avid gardener, garlic is one of my favorite crops to grow.  Why is it so rewarding?  First of all, I love to eat garlic.  As a garlic grower and eater, I can choose great-tasting varieties of garlic that are not commercially available in grocery stores.  Knowing that I grew the garlic that I’m eating  makes it taste even better.  Second off, garlic is a crop that stores very well.  Therefore, it is possible to grow enough garlic at home to meet some or all of your garlic needs throughout the year, without an extensive preservation process required by many other crops.  Third, garlic seed is easy for the home gardener to save from year to year, making it possible to grow the crop each year without purchasing more seed.  Finally, I love the growing season for garlic.  Since garlic is planted in the autumn, grows over winter, and is harvested in early/mid summer, it is a wonderful “off-season” crop that does not compete for garden space with other crops during most of the growing season.  After garlic is harvested in late June or early July, there is still time to plant a summer crop of basil, beans, or summer squash in the same bed, especially if transplants are utilized.

Garlic Growing Basics

The first step in growing garlic is acquiring garlic seed.  Garlic “seed” is actually each individual clove divided from a whole garlic bulb.  If you are growing garlic from year to year, save the biggest and best 10% of bulbs from your previous harvest for planting in the fall.  This selection process should yield seed quality improvement from year to year, adapted to your individual soil and climate. Otherwise, purchase garlic seed from a seed catalog.  My favorite supplier of garlic seed is Peaceful Valley Farm Supply (www.groworganic.com).

The two basic types of garlic are softneck and hardneck varieties.  Softneck varieties are what we generally find in supermarkets.  They keep longer than hardneck varieties and have more subtle flavor profiles than hardnecks.  Hardneck varieties tend to have more dramatic and distinct flavors.  They are easy to peel and have bigger cloves.  I suggest growing a combination of hardneck and softneck varieties.  Eat the hardnecks first (and enjoy their dramatic flavors) and eat the softnecks later, since they will store longer.

Garlic prefers a slightly acidic, well-drained, sandy-loam soil with decent soil fertility, though I have had success growing garlic in a variety of soil types.  Prepare the garlic bed by digging in well-cured compost between late September and late October (in the Northern hemisphere).  Using a furrowing tool of some sort, dig rows 18” apart and about 2” deep.  Break apart garlic bulbs into individual cloves, and plant each clove blunt end down, 4-6″ apart.   Be conscientious about choosing the largest cloves for planting, as there is a correlation between clove size and ultimate bulb size.  Cover the cloves with soil.  You may want to add a compost, leaf, or straw mulch, lightly in southern climates (1 inch), or heavily in northern climates (up to 8 inches).  Talk to experienced local garlic gardeners in your area to determine mulch requirements in your climate.  Living in northern California and southern Oregon over the last 20 years, my climate has been mild enough that mulch has not been necessary.

After planting, water in the garlic and maintain soil moisture throughout the growing season.  Garlic shoots should appear within a few weeks.  While the garlic grows, make sure you keep weeds out of the bed, especially in early spring when weeds tend to compete vigorously with the garlic.  By late spring/early summer, it will be much easier to keep the weeds down, as the garlic plants will get bigger and will compete much better for light and space.

The garlic plants may send up a flower stalk in the spring.  If they do, cut off the stalk, which will signal to the plant to put energy into the bulbs, rather than the flower, and will result in larger edible yields.

Harvest in the summertime (generally late June/early July) when the foliage falls on softnecks or when the bottom leaves dry out on hardnecks.  When the garlic leaves start to turn brown, stop watering the bed for a couple of weeks.  Use a garden fork to loosen the soil and then pull up the plants by hand.  Immediately put the whole garlic plants in a shady, dry place with good air circulation to cure.  Curing takes several weeks to a month, depending on the local climate.

When the garlic is done curing, cut off the tops and roots.  Use an old toothbrush to brush off dried-on soil and remove the outer layer of “skin” to clean the garlic.  Store in mesh bags in a cool, dry area.

Put aside the biggest and best bulbs for storing until planting time in the fall.  The rest can be eaten.  Hardnecks will store for up to 6 months, while softnecks will store for up to a year.  First thing, try making a yummy summertime pesto utilizing your home-grown garlic!