Grow some garlic!

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

It may be coming up toward the end of gardening season for some of us, but if you’re a garlic lover this is only the beginning.  Garlic is to be planted four to six weeks prior to the first frost date.  In Philadelphia that’s October 15, which puts garlic planting prime time...right now!

I planted garlic in my garden for the first time last year, and I must say that it was one of the most rewarding garden crops I’ve grown in quite some time.  I had no idea what was going on underneath our rather clay heavy soil.  It was a total surprise when I dug up the garlic, and I had the added benefit of getting to harvest the garlic scapes.  The Purple Glazer variety I planted was gorgeous.

This year I’m planting the German Extra Hardy.  This hardneck variety has white outside skin, but a dark red clove skin.  It’s a very Winter-hearty garlic, even though we really don’t have very cold or snowy Winters around here anymore (now watch, I’ve said this and jinxed us all for this year).  I plan to get out into the garden to plant this weekend.

If you’ve never planted garlic before, I heartily recommend it.  It doesn’t take up a lot of space and you can even grow garlic in containers if you don’t have a yard.  Last year I grew about 25 heads of garlic in a 2 x 3 foot space.  That’s a little crowded, but it didn’t make a difference in taste or the size of the heads.  One word of caution: do not use garlic that you’ve purchased at a grocery store.  Commercial garlic growers use breeds that are specifically made to retard sprout growth.  You can use most varieties sold by a farmer you trust, or you can order garlic online (Ebay is an especially great place to order garlic, believe it or not).

To plant garlic directly into the ground, take a bulb of garlic and divide it into cloves right before planting.  Plant the clove root-end down about an inch below the soil.  Plant each clove about four inches apart.  Before planting, consider amending the soil with a bit of well rotted compost and a good, complete fertilizer.  Keep the plot well-weeded, as garlic does not like competing plant life.  But you can pretty much forget about the garlic until next Spring.

To plant in a container, fill a big pot with some good soil mix and make sure you’ve got great drainage in there.  You can keep the pots outside in a sunny spot unless it’s really, really cold...just make sure they get water.

In any case, next Spring you’ll get garlic scapes.  And then when the garlic plant above the ground is about 80% brown, you harvest the bulb.  I think I did that in late July or early August this year.

There’s nothing like fresh garlic!