How To Grow The Stinking Rose: Growing Garlic 101
I am told there are people who don’t like garlic. They’ve got to be vampires, right? I’m writing this for non-vampires who like garlic, and like it well enough to grow their own. It’s not the easiest thing to grow but neither is it rocket science, and the payoff is wonderful.
Seed garlic arrives at the Co-op in late September from our growers in Ellensburg and Oroville, certified organic, ready to plant at your earliest convenience, ripe with the promise of bad breath, possible flatulence and really good eating. There are hundreds of varieties available but we only have space to carry about 10. That’s still 8 or 9 more than you probably need, but it’s good to have options, and no, they’re not all alike.
I like to plant mine in October, a month that seems to be the sweet spot for planting most fall bulbs including tulips, daffodils etc.: the soil has cooled off but isn’t freezing, so the bulbs (cloves in this case) root well but don’t sprout much until late winter. You’ll get away with a later planting if the soil can still be worked, but earlier is better.
Growing Conditions for Growing Garlic
Your soil should be well-drained as garlic hates winter wet, and be careful not to overwater even when the plants are actively growing. Raised beds are your best bet if your soil drains poorly.
Compost or aged manure are welcome soil amendments, and for good bulb development I plant garlic with fish bone meal – it’s rich in phosphorous, which feeds the bulb but doesn’t promote green growth as nitrogen does.
How to Plant Garlic
Plant the cloves about 5-6” inches apart, pointy side up, to a depth about 4x the size of the clove (not a bad rule of thumb for most bulbs if you don’t know the recommended planting depth).
Don’t plant the whole undivided head! Select the largest individual cloves, leaving the papery skins on. Water them in, but not again until their next feeding in early March.
Fertilizer for Garlic Plants
So, YAY, it’s March! You lived through another winter and now it’s time to pay attention to your garlic, which I’ll presume is now well-sprouted. This time you want a nitrogen-rich fertilizer to promote vigorous top growth and bulk up the whole plant. I like a good granular organic fertilizer for that as it releases its nutrients slowly; an application will feed for four to six weeks.
I sprinkle it around the plants, work it into the top inch or two of soil, and water it in. I do two applications, one around the March 1 and the second in early to mid-April.
By May you should ease up on the water, no more feeding, and completely stop watering by month’s end or whenever you notice the greens starting to fade. By late June, around the solstice, they’ll look nearly dead – right on schedule!
Harvesting & Curing Garlic
Once the green is down to two or three leaves you can begin harvesting, usually late June through early July. Leave the spent leaves/stalks on so you can easily hang bundles in a cool, dark, and well-ventilated place for two weeks plus.
This cures the garlic and extends its shelf life for months. Peel off as few of the outer layers as possible to make the heads clean and pretty, keeping in mind that the less you peel off, the longer it will keep.
Softneck vs. Hardneck Garlic
There are two garlic types: softneck and hardneck. The hardnecks have stout flower stalks that set buds and get weird in May, suddenly curling and looping kind of like a French horn. These are garlic scapes, a delicacy you can sauté, stir fry, or grill like asparagus. Garlic shouldn’t be allowed to flower, anyway, so cutting the scapes is a doubly good thing.
Hardnecks produce larger, easier-to-peel cloves but fewer of them, maybe as few as four and almost never as many as ten per head. They tend to be hotter than softnecks but generally don’t keep as well, usually six months or less.
Softnecks are most often smaller heads with smaller cloves and most grocery store garlic falls into this category. Their cloves are more numerous and most have a very long storage life – some will keep for a year! Also, these are the ones you use for braiding if you’re feeling crafty.
Garlic Varieties for Fall 2024
I don’t have the space here to describe every variety we sell, but here’s an overview of what we have for 2024. For the most part, I eat it cooked but some dishes (my Caesar salad dressing being one) require raw cloves; I also eat it raw for taste-testing. Keep in mind that even the hottest garlic mellows pretty dramatically when it’s cooked.
Music
Sicilian
Inchelium Red
Califorina Early
Messidor
Duganski
Romanian Red
Silverwhite
Gypsy Rose Music
Norquay
The “recipe” for growing this stuff may seem complicated and it’s normal not to do well with it on your first try, but keep trying! Success will come. Most people are content with the generic grocery store stuff but if that’s not you, or you’d like it not to be, opportunity awaits.