How To Grow Garlic – With Updates!

First of all, I need to tell you that my experience stems from years of growing garlic in northern New England. So, if you live in different regions of the country, I’ll point out some resources that might help you better than I can on this.

I got the inspiration to write this post because here – early August – we’re about to harvest the latest crop! The leaves are dying off, and in digging up a few bulbs, they are looking ready.

Why do I plant garlic each year?

This is an easy question to answer! Why? Because for me it’s pretty much a fool-proof crop, and it lasts all winter (stored properly). Where other garden plants take a lot of weeding and care, there are few crops that I know of (personally) that just grow so well.

If you look at the image of the garlic patch above - that's our crop from several years ago - it looks pretty much exactly the same each year. If you look carefully, you should see anywhere from 10 - 12 plants in a row, and there are probably 11 - 12 rows in all. That's a good crop right there! And that means lots to share, too!

There are other reasons to plant garlic:

• It’s good for you
• It keeps very well over the winter (keep it cool, and away from direct light) The photo below shows the LAST 2 BULBS from our crop of 2018. And it's now August 2019. We just used those last 2 bulbs (yes, they were a touch dry, but they were still good!) (UPDATE: It's NOW February of 2024, and GUESS WHAT! YES! We're still growing! Now we're into black garlic too... oh.my.gosh. If you have never tried black garlic, check it out - here's a sample.) More on this below...
• It’s one of those crops where you can really feel accomplished – you can grow your own seed crop, and cultivate its descendants year after year.
• It is super easy to grow
• Garlic is also pretty much “bug proof” since I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything go after it.
• It makes me feel like a real gardener and takes my mind off my other gardening failures (ahem, we won’t talk about those right now).

When to plant?

Up north, the rule of thumb is that I get it into the ground in the fall – sometime after Columbus Day (mid-October) and DEFINITELY before the ground freezes hard or gets covered by snow (which happened in 2018). Generally speaking, I get my bulbs planted by the end of October.

I’ve had friends in the south who have said they are going to attempt growing it, but my guess is that they’ll have to put it in the ground in the springtime since there is no “winter” frosts and snow to harden and cover the bulbs.

If I discover anyone who has had good luck with this down south, I’ll put in an update here! In the meantime, I'll list out a few resources at the end of this article as well.

Back to the Garlic.

Types of Garlic

Garlic pretty much falls into one of two types: "Softneck" (the type you can easily braid) or "Hardneck" which is pretty much what we grow - and this is the type that creates a "scape" - a shoot that grows from the center that will turn into a seed pod (I mention that below). 

So, the “seed garlic” is pretty much just whatever garlic I can source from other growers or catalogs. I’m honestly not even sure why they call it “seed garlic” because it always looks like regular garlic. We have had good luck planting garlic even if the “seed garlic” comes from a farmer's market (no one - including me - recommends that you use garlic from a grocery store because it may not grow right in your region, and even organic garlic may have some type of treatment on it).

I won’t get into the different types of garlic – there are many! I remember originally getting some “Russian Red” and some other variety.

Hey, I just plant the stuff.

2022 UPDATE: In Florida, I am told that the Softneck variety tends to grow a bit better than the Hardneck variety. Something to consider if you live in a southern climate.

2024 UPDATE: We've branched out into growing some different types of garlic these last couple of years. Our newest "WOW" factor comes from the Phillips variety, and also the German Extra Hardy; however, the German Extra Hardy doesn't "keep" as long as the Phillips. 

Check out this freshly picked bulb of Phillips garlic in my hand. The thing is huge!

And here is a picture of the freshly picked crop of Phillips. We're hooked! (Please forgive the slight blur - I took a screenshot from a video I made to show people this crop.)

Black Garlic: Oh My...What a TREAT!

We've also been making "Black Garlic" over the past year, and it's amazing! That's a topic for another post, but in short, Black Garlic is garlic that has been "aged" for lack of a better word, in a warm environment.

See this Wikipedia article about it here until I can get a new post written about it. It's absolutely delicious, with a flavor that's a little difficult to describe, but we feel like it's kind of like a dark chocolate garlic gummy bear type of flavor. Don't knock it 'til you try it! :)

Here's a picture of one of our Black Garlic results after a couple of weeks in the rice cooker (in an oven roaster bag, on the WARM function, NOT cook). Again, more on this later.

The Basics

Setting Up the Beds

You need a “bed” to plant in. Choose a spot that will get lots of sunshine. In years past, I created nice evenly spaced rows of slightly raised “mounds” (primarily so I had a good visual on WHERE I planted the bulbs). But you don’t have to do that.

What fertilizers should you use?

I suppose that there are a lot of opinions out there on this. Personally, we have always been told that you need a high nitrogen content in the soil, so we’ve always sprinkled a bag of blood meal over the plot before tilling. You will need the soil to be nicely turned, with all the composted manure and anything else you want to use to feed the soil well combined.

Because we know garlic to be a “heavy feeder” we also make sure that the soil is rich with composted manure, and nice and loose (we’ve used peat moss some years to loosen up the dirt). Make sure you don’t use “green” manure because you don’t want to “burn” the crop.

Some of my neighbors swear by composted horse manure, and in fact, some of the largest bulbs I have ever seen come out of the ground in my neighborhood were from soil that had horse manure added to it.

Prepping and Spacing the Cloves

I use a long piece of scrap wood to use as an edge to guide my planting efforts (so that I plant in a straight line).

If you have a bulb of garlic that has 5 individual cloves, each clove will be a seed for the plant. Plan on planting your cloves about 6 – 8” apart, and 2 – 3” deep.

Take a look at this photo (above) of one of our last garlic patches before we moved - this was right after we planted in October of 2018. Notice that snow? Oy… It began snowing in the mountains on October 24, and Never. Stopped.

It was all we could do to carve out a window to plant at all – which we did. Barely.

Mulching and Maintaining the Crop

Notice the straw layer of mulch? Ordinarily we would be piling on mounds of fallen leaves (whatever leaves fell in the yard and grounds) for mulch. This last fall the snow pretty much put the kibosh on that. There was no way we could salvage any leaves, which is a real bummer.

Why? Because those leaves serve a bigger purpose than just protecting the freshly planted bulbs.

Over the course of the winter and then spring and summer, the leaves leach their nutritive goodies into the soil and further feed the growing garlic. In addition, the thick layer of leaves flattens out, and creates an amazing weed barrier.

Seriously, weeding that patch is a non-issue.

The mulch also helps the ground retain the precious water that garlic needs. If you haven’t had rain in a while, poke the ground under the mulch – if it’s getting dry, give your garlic patch a good drink.

With no leaves to mulch, however, we did the next best thing, and my friend (to whom this house now belongs since we sold it last fall) brought up the bales of straw.

Let the Magic Happen 

Watch for the Shoots to Come up in the Spring

One of the sure signs of spring is seeing those beautiful tender green shoots pop through the leaves (or, straw, this year). For us in the mountains of New Hampshire, that is late April.

Upon seeing those first shoots, head over to your garlic patch, and move any sticks or heavy debris away from the mulch that might impede the plants from coming up. Most of the time they will have no problem pushing themselves through the leaves or other mulch.

Some of the early shoots may appear yellow-ish and limp. Give them a few days of sunshine and you should see them liven up.

Keep an eye on the patch – watering when the ground gets dry, and weeding away any interlopers vying for the precious nutrients intended for your crop.

Wash – Dry (Cure) - Store

The first thing we do once the crop is dug up is wash the bulbs thoroughly. Get as much of the dirt and mud off as possible.

We do it with a hose and wheelbarrow at first, then lay the bulbs out on a deck and spray them all one more time. The picture below shows our crop from August 2018! That was after the first rinsing.

We let them dry for a day or so – make sure it’s going to be dry, since you don’t want them to start sitting in the rain for any length of time.

Then, I personally snip them down to the bulb, and put them on a framed piece of chicken wire, and bring them into covered area where the air will circulate and they can dry for a week or so.

I’ve braided garlic, but quickly realized that I preferred to just snip them and store them. I wasn’t showing my wares at fairs and farmers’ markets where creating garlic braids might draw customers in. I’m all about cooking and eating the crop. (Sorry to sound so callous!)

After that, we bag them in mesh bags – we’ll hang them in the cellar, distribute them among friends, and of course – and very importantly – sort out the ones we are going to put aside to plant in October to start the entire process over again!

I’m going to post this now – but as soon as I have photos of the new crop, I will come back and add them.

UPDATE: February 2024: After I first wrote this article in 2018 (sounds so long ago!), we sold our home and moved. BUT, we return to the mountains each summer and now rent a cottage. Because we don't have our own property anymore, we thought we wouldn't be able to continue growing our garlic. 

Fortunately, we have a dear friend who has some extra garden space that she doesn't need, and she has offered it to us! We all have a great time gardening together, and she grows a bunch of garlic as well (she's an absolute master gardener!). 

First picture: This is where we now hang our garlic to dry - on an enclosed porch where the weather will not get to it.

Check out this spot where she allows us to plant. Is this not one of the most gorgeous views to have when you're out in the garden?  You can see our garlic to the left in the closest patch and in the left 3 rows in the patch that's further out. In this photo, it's just about ready to harvest! This was August 2023.