Any idiot can grow garlic. Seriously. When's the last time you watched a television special on the "Remarkable Garlic Growing Person"? Never. Because you do not have to be remarkable in any way, shape or form to successfully grow garlic. But you do have to plant it - and the time to plant is October.
Skip right to the instructions.
I'll be planting my garlic in the next few weeks. Garlic is a fall planted crop that's harvested in July. October is the time to plant your garlic for next year's harvest. This right here is a step by step tutorial on how to plant, grow, harvest and store one of my favourite crops - garlic
Many, many, many, several, too many to count ... years ago, my father brought home some garlic. And THAT is when my garlic growing obsession began.
I'm obsessed with many things, that's how I've learned to do so much and why I can't sleep at night because I'm always plotting, planning or cleaning up after my latest venture. Occasionally I'm getting rid of evidence.
Same for bean sprouts. You can grow bean sprouts at home in 4 days. These are not difficult skills.
For growing garlic you just need some garlic and some dirt. Ready? Let's plant some garlic.
The first thing you need to know is which type you should be planting: hardneck or softneck garlic?
What's the difference between Hardneck and Softneck garlic?
Softneck garlic
- Softneck garlic is best grown in warmer climates.
- Has no stalk that grows up from the centre and therefore doesn't produce a garlic scape.
- Softneck garlic heads are generally smaller than hardneck and have smaller cloves.
- The head of a softneck garlic can be made up of multiple rows of garlic cloves.
- Softneck garlic will store for 6-8 months if kept in optimal conditions.
Hardneck garlic
- Hardneck garlic is best grown in cooler climates.
- It has a long hard stalk that grows up from the centre of the head, producing a scape in June and a flower head later in the season filled with little garlic bulbils which you can use as garlic seed.
- Hardneck garlic is larger than softneck and has bigger cloves.
- Cloves form the head in a single row.
- Hardneck garlic will store for 4-6 months if kept in optimal conditions.
So generally speaking, if you live in a climate where you get lots of very cold temperatures and snow in the winter, plant hardneck. If you live in a warmer climate with mild winters and hot summers, softneck garlic is for you.
How to Grow Garlic
Separate your garlic head into cloves. Just pull them apart. Pick out the biggest cloves for planting.
The flat end of the garlic is the root end.
The pointy end is the tip of the garlic. It needs to point up.
You want to plant the garlic "root" end down and pointy end up. The tip of the clove should be about 3 inches below the ground. The bigger the clove you plant, the bigger the resulting head of garlic will be.
If you sprinkle a little oregano on top of the garlic and squeeze a tomato over everything, in 9 months you'll have grown a delicious marinara sauce.
No you won't.
Plant the garlic cloves so they're around 4 inches apart and their tips are covered by a few inches of dirt.
Cover them up and wait. Through the fall the clove will start to develop roots and maybe even a shoot depending on how warm your weather is.
By the spring with a little help from sun, water and these little guys to aerate the soil, you'll have garlic plants starting! A single clove, produces an entire head of garlic.
Harvesting takes place in July and is accompanied by the traditional garlic harvesting dance. That's followed by curing the garlic and properly storing it - which do not have official dances associated with them. Curing and storing is treated with reverence. Just kidding. I dance for those things too.
How to Grow Garlic.
How to grow hardneck garlic. From planting to harvesting.
Materials
- Heads of garlic
Tools
- Trowel or shovel
Instructions
- Separate your head of garlic into individual cloves.
- Choose the largest cloves for planting.
- Plant the garlic, flat end down (the root end) in a hole that is 3-4" deep. When covered with soil, the tip of the garlic should be around 2" below the soil line.
- Fall planted garlic will develop roots underground in the fall and then go dormant through the winter. In spring it starts to grow again.
- In June, hardneck garlic will send up "scapes". Scapes are the tip of the growing stalk. Cut these off once they loop into a complete circle.
- DON'T THROW THE SCAPES OUT. You can use them for cooking or making a DELICIOUS garlic scape pesto.
- Stop watering your garlic 2 weeks before you harvest. (Around the time the lower leaves on the plant have turned brown.)
- Dig garlic up in July when one half of the leaves are brown. This indicates the garlic is ready to be harvested.
- Cure your garlic by hanging it in a well ventilated, shaded area like a porch. Leave it to dry for 2 weeks. This curing process will help your garlic to store much longer.
- Once cured you can cut the roots off of your garlic and the stem, leaving 1-2" of stem above the bulb.
- Store garlic between 55-65 degrees Fahrenheit. A humidity level of 65% is the best.
Notes
- The bigger the clove you plant the bigger the head of garlic will be.
- If properly stored hardneck garlic will store for around 6 months.
- You can also freeze your garlic cloves. Just separate the cloves and put them in a freezer safe container. Do not remove the skins, they're a protective layer.
- Want garlic powder? Dry extra garlic in a dehydrator and then grind it into homemade garlic powder.
- Softneck garlic is planted and grown the exact same way except it's planted in the spring and there are no scapes to remove.
- If you missed the fall planting for your garlic, don't worry! You can still plant it in the spring and get a good garlic harvest. A gardener at my community garden does this every year. Your garlic heads may just be a little smaller than fall planted garlic.
Can You Use Grocery Store Garlic for Planting?
What's The Best Variety of Garlic to Grow?
Can I Plant My Garlic in the Spring? Because I Forgot/Ran Out of Time/Couldn't Be Bothered To Plant It in the Fall.
How Much Should I Water It?
Water your garlic just like you would any other crop you're growing. The fall is usually a rainy time and once I plant it I don't water it at all. I just let nature run its course. What IS important though is to stop watering your garlic 2 weeks before you harvest. Around the time the lower leaves on the plant have turned brown. This helps speed up curing and the drying of the papers around the head.
When Can I Dig It Up?
How do you dig up garlic? Just rip it out?
Um, no. Don't harvest your garlic by trying to pull and manhandle it out of the ground. Dig it. Otherwise you may break the head apart.
What kind of dehydrator do you use?
I use an Excalibur dehydrator (it's pretty much what most dehydrating enthusiasts use) for all my dehydrating projects. You can take a look at the Excalibur dehydrator here (this one is white, but mine is black.)
Hands down my favourite garlic recipe is actually one that doesn't use any garlic at all. It uses the garlic scapes I harvest in June, which is yet ANOTHER reason to grow garlic. My garlic scape pesto is delicious on pasta or pizza and stores for a year in the freezer.
Now you have all the information you need on how to grow garlic so get out there and get your hands dirty. Or for the more refined among you - soily.
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Becca Gater
I apologize if you have already answered this... Is there a problem with planting in containers outside? Also how much sun do they need? I am in NJ, if that makes a difference.
Thanks!
Karen
Hi becca! I'm in Ontario, Canada so we have solar climates. I can't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to plant garlic in pots outside. Just make sure they're in full sun (or the most sun you have access to) and you remember to keep them watered. I have a hunch they'd do better in the ground but I think they'll work in a big pot with good soil. Don't plant them until the end of October or so. Good luck! - karen!
sharon
I'm buying some garlic tomorrow! I love reading your post's!Your so down to earth,funny,and a very smart cookie! Thanks for all you shared ideas
Dawn Aran
I live in MIami, Florida. would i be able to grow it down here…."open the oven door" heat and "wring out ur shirt" humidity during the summer. when? need shade? how long to get a harvest. I'm full of very simple questions, i know. Never grew a veg garden. this will be my 1st attempt… complete novice here!
thanks for any advice & tips,
Dawn
Karen
Dawn - You can grow garlic in Florida, it's just a little trickier. Garlic likes the winter. You can do it but you'll have to grow a different variety than I do. I grow hard neck garlic, where you'd be better off choosing a soft neck for your region. Go to a farmers market if there's one around you and buy some of their garlic to plant. That way you know it won't be sprayed with a sprout inhibitor and you know it will grow in your area. Don't buy it from a grocery store because you have no idea where it has come from or whether or not it will grow in your area. Or grow at all! Often grocery store heads of garlic won't sprout because they've been sprayed with something to stop sprouting. You want to plant around December. (November and January would be fine too) Whenever the days are the shortest. Good luck. ~ karen!
Dawn Aran
THANKS! we do have a few farmers markets and i plan to ck them out! will give this a try in Dec. I love garlic so it wld b fun to eat some that i've grown
Dawn
Lisa
Hi Karen! I was wondering when you'll have an update on harvesting garlic. I'm in zone 3 (North Dakota) & my organic grocery store garlic is starting to dry/die back, so I'm not sure how long to cure it and all that fun stuff, counting on ya! (no pressure)
:-) Lisa
Karen
Hi Lisa! I planned to do a garlic post soon, but here's a tip. When around half the leaves have died back, it's time to dig up your garlic. You don't want to wait until the whole plant has browned, otherwise the garlic will be dried out. ~ karen!
Pats
I have chives in small pots that I leave outside year round. (I'm in Plant Hardiness Zone 5) They come back year after year. I bet I could do this with garlic too!
Karen
Pats - Indeed you could! But it wouldn't work :(. Garlic has to be planted every fall from the cloves of a garlic head. HOWEVER, if the pot is HUGE enough (deep) you could give growing them in a pot every year a try. Or is that what you meant? Oops. Nevermind. ~ karen
Susie
Hi! Quick question-would you recommend rehydrating the (store bought) garlic before planting it? Like sticking it in some water for an hour or so? Thanks!
Karen
Hi Susie. No, there's no reason to do that. It's actually too late to plant garlic now. Depending on where you are, the end of October/November is the time to plant. You can get away with planting it any time in the very late fall or even winter as long as the ground is workable. ~ karen!
Andreae
Hey guess what! I have been planting the same brand of organic grocery store garlic as the one in your photo for the last two years, and it has been excellent. I got in there really late this year (really late... like after Christmas late...) but I'm in Newfoundland where the weather is ridiculous, so I take planting times as just kind of a polite suggestion. The soil in my garlic bed was partially frozen, so I could only just barely cover the cloves. As soon as I could chip away the frozen compost from my inefficient and partially rotten composter this spring, I put a nice, thick layer on top of my garlic babies, followed by another layer of soil. Now, despite my abusive behaviour, I have a gorgeous-looking army of garlic plants coming up through the soil, looking like total street toughs in the freak snowfall we had here yesterday. Oh, indestructible garlic, you are mighty. I might get small crappy cloves this year due to my tardiness, but I'm really in it for the scapes anyway (my favourite vegetable, but I've been eating them for, like, ten years, so I'm old school and I'm allowed... I would totally have eaten your flower arrangements... no, I wouldn't have, but I would have thought about it...).
Hannah Jarboe
I live in Northern Texas. When is a good time for me to start planting garlic? I'm really wanting to try this. Thanks!
Karen
Hi Hannah. If you can work the soil you can probably run out and plant it now. You need to get it in the ground as quickly as possible. Fall is best, but if you can get it in early spring, you should have garlic by August or so. ~ karen!
Nicole
Please stop the pop-up survey questions... they are the worst and ruin your amazing site. Who wants to be on a site with a pop-up that keeps scrolling down the page? And all the "ad choices" info above your banner? Its awful.
Karen
Nicole - First of all, ads are the only way bloggers make money. You don't have to pay for the posts, so we need to get paid somehow. I've changed ad networks and things haven't settled in yet. There aren't supposed to be any pop up survey ads. However, the banner ad at the top of my site will be staying. I don't see anything wrong with it. If I were to take all my ads down, sadly, I'd have to take down the whole site. Most people who read blogs don't understand, that the only way we make money is from those ads. Get rid of the ads, then you get rid of the sites. (This blog is a full time job requiring around 10 hours a day, 6 days a week of work) Hopefully you can live with the odd ad, although I agree the pop ups aren't supposed to be there. I'll look into it. ~ karen
Karen
Oh! And I meant to say, whenever there are upgrades or changes to my site that might make it perform differently for a while I always post about it on Facebook. If you join up, you'll be warned of things like the ads or when I'm upgrading my server etc. ~ k
alane123
I had unknowingly left a head of garlic in a glass measuring cup, inside the cabinet, in N.Carolina for 3 dark/cold winter months, no heat or electric on in the house. And (tada) I came back to find wonderful green sprouts ! Here I wasted all that time planting it in the dirt outside, sheesh. But, this year, fortified with all this inside info, I will be the neighborhood Garden Garlic Princess ! Mucho thanks !
Kelly
Dad you should add garlic to the garden!
KittyCardea
I've tried planting the garlic from the produce section. It hasn't worked. It always grows for a bit, then dies. I am fairly sure I wasn't doing anything wrong. A friend suggested that the problem is that most of our grocery store garlic comes from China. ((shrug)) So, this year I'm buying garlic sets from the lawn and garden store.
Patty
What I just started doing may be a total fail, but I had some garlic growing in my refrigerator last week, so I planted it in a few pots indoors (it's getting very cold outside and my raised garden isn't built yet). In only 5 days my garlic has grown 4 inches. I'm not kidding! I'm going to cut it back so it can concentrate on growing the bulbs and see what happens. Even if I don't get good garlic bulbs, it's been alot of fun with garlic that I would have ordinarily thrown away!
Karen
Patty - Put it outside! Put it outside! And don't cut it back! Oh dear. You only pinch the top portion of the stem back once it's around 2 feet high or more and has started to form the scape. The flower bud portion of the plant. The garlic likes this winter business. At the very least, take half of it out and plant it outside. In a deep pot is fine. If the sprouts are outside of the soil, that's fine. The winter won't harm them. ~ karen! (let me know how the indoor stuff works.)
Sandy Blackford
Patty I hope you ate the trimmings that you cut off the garlic plants, they are delish cut up in a salad... best not to trim them at all though until it is time to cut off the scapes...don't waste those either! ps. I have just planted a few garlic cloves in pots in my hot tub room, temp in there is about 55 - 60 . Light conditions are not great but they do get early morning sun. I am hoping to be able to harvest a few green stalks to put in my salad. I have my main garlic crop already planted in my raised beds. Also, dried scapes make a fantastic mild, garlic powder....I would be happy to email the "recipe" to anyone who is interested. I hope that would be ok to do that Garlic Queen?
sandie.black@gmail.com
Tracy
This is so awesome. I am determined to make a "Lazy Girl raised bed Garden" using cinder blocks this coming spring and use only low maintenance veggies to plant (or whatever....) This is perfect! Only..I guess I need to start "today" right?! LOL!
Becky
There was a little girl who did an organic vs regular sweet potato experiment...I wonder if you've seen her video. Very compelling stuff. I'm curious to see how your regular garlic bulb grows compared to your organic bulb.
Here's a link to her video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exBEFCiWyW0
Karen
Thanks Becky! I'll have a look. When I ran into town yesterday to pick up a few things a small shop had "local" garlic which was obviously never sprayed with anything and it looked just like the stuff I used to grow from my dad. Very small with 6 or so cloves to each head. I'm thinking of ripping out the regular store stuff and planting this now! What dope. :) ~ karen
Blair
Would it be acceptable to do this in a pot? I live in an apartment so my gardening has to happen on my patio...
Karen
Blair - Yup. Just make sure the pot is big enough. The bigger the better. At least 12" deep. Keep it watered and make sure it's in the sun. Those long rectangular planters work well too, as long as they're big and deep. ~ karen!
Eva
ooooh thanks for the post! totally doing it this weekend. just have to decide where....
Vinci.L
How often do you have to water them in Vancouver BC or do you just leave them in the soil???? Thanks for the awesome post!!!!!!!! Yum garlic bread!!!! :)
Karen
Vinci.L - Just leave em in the ground. Come spring treat them like any other vegetable. Water when it's dry. Although being in Vancouver ... you should probably be O.K. :) ~ karen
Gwen @SimplyHealthyFamily
This is pure, simple awesomness! Why the heck have I never even considered growing my absolute favorite errr, food? I live in Phoenix, so I should be o.k. to plant a few bulbs right?
p.s./fyi
just because something is Organic is not a guaruntee that it hasn't been sprayed w pesticides. yup, I was shocked too.
Shauna
We just planted garlic for the first time ever as well. They grow so quickly, we already have green shoots coming out of the ground.