We got our garlic beds planted a few weeks ago! This year we were so happy with how our garlic turned out. There is just something special about being able to grow your own fresh food and ingredients! This year we decided to expand and plant more than double what we did last year! Here’s to hoping that next year’s harvest is just as bountiful!
In zone 4 we plant our garlic the last few weeks of October or the very beginning of November based on our temperatures that year.
1. Prepare your soil. We had to dig, till and amend soil for these new garden beds. We added organic matter but thankfully the soil where we decided to plant was already fairly good for growing garlic.
These are our two 40 foot long, 4 feet wide garlic beds.
2. Layout your rows, this is where we found it useful to have posts and string to make sure our rows were straight. We also at this point separated our bulbs into the individual cloves and counted so we had an idea of how many rows would be needed.
3. Start planting! We plant our cloves 2-3 inches deep with 6-8 inch spacing. We also made sure to mark each row with the variety we planted there. Since we are trying to experiment with a few varieties this was an essential step! Also make sure to plant with the tip pointing up, the part of the clove that was attached to the bulb is what should be facing down as that is where it will start forming roots.
4. Cover your crop. We live in zone 4 so our winters get a little too cold for garlic to not be covered. So we cover ours with a good thick layer of organic straw. Make sure it is about 4-6 inches thick.
Another important factor in planting garlic is making sure you have good seed garlic. Seed garlic is just what they call garlic that will be being planted. This year we really ramped up our garlic production, so we have several varieties we are experimenting with. We had the opportunity to go to a garlic festival this year to learn about and buy all of our seed garlic.
Also keep in mind that there are two main types of garlic, softneck and hardneck varieties. Soft neck varieties will not produce scapes like the hard neck varieties do. Although the softneck varieties tend to have a longer storage life and we have had good luck with hardneck varieties as long as they are cured correctly. We also enjoy the hardneck variety because of the scapes which can be used in many different ways, we like to use garlic scapes in all kinds of recipes.
Our harvested garlic scapes.
Also remember if you plan on using your crop as seed garlic; make sure to save the biggest and best bulbs as they will produce the best harvest in the coming year!
Happy gardening!
