Spice Up Your Landscape with Garlic

7 minutes ago

3 min read

Meteorological autumn has arrived and with bulb planting season on the doorstep, consider adding garlic to your fall planting roster. Garlic’s culinary uses are almost infinite and it’s good for digestive and respiratory health. As a bonus for gardeners, garlic’s also easy to grow. You can enjoy home grown garlic in your cooking as early as next June by following the steps below.

Give it a Grow—It’s Easy

For successful overwintering in northern climates like Zone 5, select hardneck garlic from a reliable seed supplier rather than using supermarket garlic (softneck varieties are more suitable for southern hardiness zones).

Garlic, like many of its allium brethren, likes full sun and rich soil that has good drainage, so identify a spot in the landscape where it can thrive during the next growing season. Then choose a planting date that’s six weeks-to-one month before frost to allow your bulbs root before the soil freezes (here in Minnesota, October’s a great time to plant garlic bulbs).

To plant:

Loosen the soil and amend it with organic matter.
Separate the cloves from the head—each clove will become a plant.
Plant the cloves two to four inches deep—skin on—with the pointed ends up and the root end facing down. Warmer micro climates might do okay with only an inch of soil covering the tips.
Distance the cloves approximately six to eight inches apart, as each clove will develop into a bulb.
Cover the surface of of the soil with a thick layer of mulch (e.g., straw). This step will provide important winter protection and some weed control in the spring when the surrounding plants emerge.
Wait for spring to arrive.

When green shoots poke up, give your garlic a liquid feed such as fish emulsion or compost tea. Then water your bulbs regularly during the growing season—don’t let the soil become soggy—and weed like crazy. Garlic doesn’t compete well with other plants. If you’re looking for strong flavor or hoping for big bulbs, you may choose to remove the flower stalks during the growing season.

Harvesting and Storage Tips

With the hardneck variety of garlic, you can pick one of the following two harvesting methods:

Snip the green stems (i.e., scapes) in June to chop up and mix into pesto, hummus, flatbread dough and more.
To use the bulbs for cooking or herbal remedies, wait a month or two longer until the tops turn yellow and fall over. When the stems flop, the bulbs will have distinct cloves and be ready to pull (be sure to dig up the bulbs before they die back entirely; about 50% die back is a reliable signal).

Once bulbs are unearthed, don’t wash them; rather, brush off any excess soil. Then tie together a handful of stems and hang them in a cool, dry place (like your basement or garage) to cure and bring out robust flavor. Laying the bulbs on a mesh rack—out of the sun—works well for curing, too. Whatever your method, allow them to dry for one to four weeks until a papery skin develops. Then you can get cooking. Store extra bulbs in a dark, breathable container, and they may keep for months.

Tina lives near Como Lake in Saint Paul and has been an Extension volunteer since 2013. As a citizen gardener, she focuses on pollinator and hummingbird habitat, herbs, and a slowly expanding repertoire of vegetables.