Almost Time to Plant Garlic!

This year's garlic crop, pulled, washed and hung up to cure in the shade on our north facing porch.

Garlic is one of those crops that is very easy to grow, but takes a bit of planning. That extra planning is well worth the effort though. Freshly pulled garlic that is plump and juicy almost seems like a completely different vegetable than the cured garlic you put up for the winter. One of the nice things about garlic is that it will give you a good return from a very small plot.

Garlic is planted in the fall so that it will develop a strong root system before winter sets in. In upstate NY, on my parent's homestead, we would harvest the garlic crop in mid August and plant the next years crop a few weeks later. Here in Michigan I harvest in mid July and usually have next years crop in the ground by mid August. But it can be planted anytime in late summer or fall before the ground freezes.

There are literally hundreds of different varieties of garlic. I've grown garlic in every garden I have ever had, but always stuck to growing the name unknown, rocambole type garlic that my parents have been growing on their homestead for the last 40 years. (The original bulbs where given to him by an Italian immigrate, and it is a fairly mild garlic that is hardy, and stores reasonably well.) I have been wanting to try growing different kinds of garlic, but didn't know where to start. So I jumped at the chance last fall to visit  Dick and Diana Dyer's new garlic farm and try some varieties they recommended for this part of Michigan.

I have so much to learn about the different types of garlic. This year my garlic patch include rocambole, porcelain, and an artichoke soft neck type, and this is just barely scratching the surface when it comes to the many types of garlic.

Rocambole type. Cloves of varying sizes surround a hard stem. There can be as many eight to twelve cloves per bulb.The wrapper tends to be thin, and rocamboles generally aren't long keepers, but often make up for that by being full of flavor. This is a photo of the rocambole garlic my father has grown for the past 40 years. Cloves tend to be blunt tipped.

 Porcelain types have a thick outer wrapping and 4 to five large, uniform cloves surrounding a  hard stem. Even the smallest bulbs have large cloves. This is great if you are using a lot of garlic for one recipe, but it can be frustrating if you need just a small clove for a salad. Porcelain is one of the prettiest garlics. Smooth uniform bulbs have satiny white wrappers and often the cloves are rose colored. They are also great keepers.  Pictured below is German Extra Hardy, a porcelain type garlic.

Artichoke type. Artichoke types are soft neck garlic. This is the type of garlic you most often see in the grocery store. They do better in warm climates then the hard neck varieties do and are grown commercially in places like California.  Artichoke types tend to be the best keepers, and come in a wide range of flavors. Because they don't have the hard inner stem they are the best for garlic braids. They can have as many as 20 cloves of garlic in each bulb, with larger outer cloves and much smaller inner cloves. This photo is of  Kettle River Giant--note the larger outer cloves and smaller inner cloves.

1) Selecting your garlic: If you have never grown grown garlic before, I would suggest going to your local farmers market and talking to the farmers who are selling garlic. See what does well in your area. Buy a few bulbs to taste and decide which varieties you like. Once you have settled on the kind you want to grow, you need to separate the cloves. Chose the largest well formed cloves to plant. Generally, the larger the clove, the larger and sturdier the garlic plant will be. Don't plant the large double cloves though. These will grown into two garlic bulbs which will tend to be smaller and misshaped.

2) Prepare your soil. Garlic likes soft loamy soil with lots of compost. When I gardened in clay soil, I would add sand and lots of compost to the garlic bed. Our 13 acres is almost pure sand, so I just add lots and lots of compost.

3) Plant your garlic. Place cloves about five inches apart , with the pointy side up. Push the cloves into the soft soil, barely covering the tip. Space rows at least a foot apart.

4) Mulch your garlic. As the green shoots emerge, mulch between the rows. In late fall, before the first hard freeze, mulch over your garlic beds heavily to protect them from freezing during the winter. When spring comes, rake back the mulch that is covering the garlic, so the plants can continue to grow. They usually look pale and peaked the first few days after being uncovered, but have always perked right up with sunshine and fresh air and quickly turn into healthy looking plants.

5) Summer maintenance:  Keep your garlic patch weeded and well watered. When the garlic scapes emerge in June cut them off. These are the immature seed heads and if they are allowed to remain on the plant, all the energy in the bulb will go into the seed head and you will end up with very small bulbs. The scapes are delicious used in pesto and other recipes.

 6) Harvest time!  Your garlic is ready to harvest when the lowest two sets of leaves have turned brown. (The upper leaves on the stalk should still be green.) Harvesting at this stage will ensure that the outer wrappers on the garlic bulbs will be papery, but intact.  Garlic is easy to pull by hand when the soil is damp. I either water before pulling it or go out right after a rain. It can also easily be dug using a spading fork.

I trim the roots right there in garden and gently rinse off excess dirt in a bucket of water. If you have a small crop you can cut off the stems and lay the bulbs on a tray or in a basket to cure for a few weeks, before putting into storage. Larger crops can be bunched up in airy bunches and hung to dry in a well ventilated place out of direct sunlight.  Once the outer wrappers are papery and dry the stems can be cut off and the garlic stored in a cool dry place. How long the garlic keeps depends on the variety. There as some varieties that will keep until the next crop of garlic is ready to harvest.

Don't forget to enjoy some of the freshly pulled garlic.. The cloves tend to be very juicy and mild and the flavors less intense when they are fresh.

This post is part of the barn hop over at Homestead Revival. 

For those of you who have grown garlic, what varieties do you grow?