How to grow huge garlic bulbs, and protect them.
How to grow huge garlic bulbs, and being able to protect them is an easy staple for any no dig gardener. Following a few basic principles you can grow enough garlic for the whole year, and have coves for seed. Knowing your growing zone is important, because garlic has two basic types. The two types are hardneck, suited to colder climates, and softneck suited to warmer climates. Both of these have their benefits, and drawbacks. Then there is Elephant Garlic, which is actually more closely related to leeks and onions. Elephant Garlic is grown in the same way from its cloves as other garlic, but we’ll speak more in depth about that HERE.
Choosing between hardneck or softneck garlic
Hardneck garlic needs at least 40 days of temperatures below 4C, 39F for it to be able to split in to cloves. If allowed, hardneck garlic produces a stalk through the centre that will eventually become the flower. In most cases, we harvest this when very young. This bonus harvest is called scapes. You can use these in stir-fries, as green onions, or make pesto with them. The cloves from hardneck garlic are generally fewer, but larger than softneck. They are also stronger in taste once cured. The down side is that the stalk dries ridged, so creating the pleasing garlic plaits can be difficult. The bulbs may also not store as long. However, if you want to preserve your garlic for long term storage, the bigger cloves take less preparation time. They are also better for cooking whole.
This is our Honey Fermented Garlic recipe.
This is our Pickled Garlic recipe.
Softneck garlic is usually chosen by living in warmer climates, and suits Spring planting. It is well suited for those that like a milder taste, and smaller cloves. Softneck also has a longer storage capability, as well as the bonus of being able to plait the stalks. The downside to growing softneck garlic is that it takes longer to mature. In adverse conditions this can be a negative for disease, such as Garlic Rust impacting development.
How to plant garlic for the best results
Garlic is a rather greedy plant, I usually grow hardneck varieties, since I’m in a temperate zone 8. I layer compost and manure over my beds in Autumn, and plant my cloves in late September to November. I use a long wooden spade handle as a ‘dibber’ to make holes approximately three inches deep. These holes are then 4-6 inches apart. You can plant the garlic closer, but you risk getting smaller bulbs that way. Choose the biggest cloves from the biggest bulbs. This ensures the best genetics getting passed on. Don’t worry if they are already sprouting, you can see mine were in the video below. All grew bulbs. Place the clove in the hole point end upwards, and cover with compost.
Protecting the garlic from pests
I started covering my garlic with insect netting for a couple of reasons.
A. birds and other creatures will often pull the cloves from the holes before it is well established. Don’t worry if this happens. Just pop them back in the ground, and all should be well. Garlic is very hardy, and usually carries on like nothing happened.
B. in 2022 my garlic was attacked for the first time by Allium Leaf Miner. This is a small fly that lays its eggs on the plant. It’s larvae then eat through the leaves, bulbs, and reside in the soil over winter. Any bulbs with the chrysalis in them won’t store.
Again, this isn’t such an issue for me as I only grow my garlic to preserve. However, this pest attacks all the allium family, so keeping it to a minimum in the garden is better. The only down side to having netted my garlic this year is it contributed to another issue I’ve never had before. This is Garlic Rust, and we’ll discuss that more HERE, when we harvest and cure our garlic.
Caring for our garlic
Once we’ve planted our garlic, we can pretty much leave it alone until the warmer weather. Even then, this wonderful plant is mostly hands off. If you’ve planted in Autumn, you may notice than some of your leaves are yellowing. This is perfectly normal. This is due to harsh weather conditions, but with the warmer weather the plants will soon bounce back. As they start to grow, any surface weed seeds will do too. Garlic does not like being crowded, so keep weeds to a minimum. Use an organic feed once a month, and water deeply as your weather requires. Garlic likes free draining soil, but there is a lot of moisture gets put in to developing your bulbs.
When is garlic ready to harvest?
As I mentioned, hardneck garlic produces scapes. This happens from the end of May to mid July, and depends on the weather as well as variety. These, if left, would become the flower, and then produce seeds. Regardless of whether you plan to use these, they must be removed. We need the plant to put all it’s energy in to forming the bulbs. At this point the plant is a few weeks away from being ready for harvest. Careful monitoring is a must from this point on. Generally, we’re looking for the plants starting to die back before we harvest.
Softneck garlic doesn’t produce the scapes, but instead acts more like an onion stem. Just as we’d usually wait for an onion stem to start dying back, become soft at the base, and fall, so we do with garlic. Again, the time this happens depends on the weather, variety, pests, and disease pressure. Sometimes it is better to harvest our garlic early and save it, rather than wait and lose it.
We’ll discuss harvesting HERE.
This video on my Rumble account covers everything spoken about above-
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