How to Grow Garlic - COMPLETE GUIDE (Planting to Harvest)

This video covers an entire year in the process of

grow

ing

garlic

, from putting the cloves in the ground to

harvest

to saving new cloves and starting the whole process again. Hi, I'm Gardner Scott, I'm a Master Gardener and I talk about all things gardening. that you can become a better gardener today let me show you how to

grow

garlic

today I'm going to

harvest

my garlic the process started nine months ago and I'm going to show you every step of the process so let's go ahead and jump nine months ago Hi, I'm Gardner Scott and today is one of my favorite days of the year.

It's the day I plant garlic. It's early October, which is perfect for my zone five garden. Garlic takes eight to nine months to grow. from putting the clove in the ground to harvesting the bulb and I will show you the whole process. You should grow garlic in a location that receives at least six hours of sun each day and the more the better, the soil should be as rich as possible and as loose as possible, you really don't want compacted soil because the individual garlic cloves will grow. That grow into bulbs need to expand, so looser soil will allow those cloves to expand much more easily.

I'm going to plant garlic during this whole process. I have 12 different varieties and much of it will be used next October for next year's plants, but a large amount will also be used in my kitchen for best results. I like to place the garlic in a grid six inches apart. of each individual clove is about 15 centimeters, so I start by placing my plant labels six inches apart to identify where the rows will be and then when I spread out the individual cloves, I will place them six inches apart as I prepare to plant , I will break the bulb to release the individual cloves inside and I will continue to separate these bulbs into individual cloves to plant them first because I like to have everything spread out so I will just follow the line and get the cloves ready to use the number of cloves will vary depending on the different types of garlic at this point I will simply separate the cloves and that will give me an idea of ​​how many I will need to plant in each row. i got six of this matechie the matechi is a hard neck variety of garlic this inch liam red is a soft neck and i have one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven 12 cloves from this single bulb as I prepare to put the cloves in for put them in their last hole I want to choose the best cloves to plant now, going back to this matechi, it is a hard neck and all the clothes are basically the same size, so I will plant all of these but with this enchiliam. red, I get different sized cloves depending on where they are on the bulb, so I'll try to focus on these larger cloves for

planting

and if I don't need them, I'll save these smaller cloves to use in cooking.

The larger bulbs will grow into much bigger and better bulbs next year. If you find any cloves that are really damaged or look like they're starting to rot or maybe are really dry, don't even try to plant these clothes. It's best to just throw them in the compost pile if you find any that seem to have little eggs inside them, maybe little filaments that look like spider webs, don't even throw them in the compost pile, these go in the trash you don't want. To introduce pests into next year's garlic crop, as I spread out the cloves, I will stagger the rows, so that when I start a new row I will make sure the cloves actually run midway between the previous cloves.

You want to bury the cloves at least twice as deep as the height of the tooth, so for a one and a half inch or about four centimeters clove you should bury it in a hole three inches deep or about three and a half centimeters deep. in a bed like this where I have everything precisely measured, I will have a few cloves left over from those little ones that I don't think will become very good plants, they will definitely go to the kitchen to use them, but I have some sturdy ones. cloves that can grow into great plants and I will actually spread them all over the garden.

They can be a great help to you and your pest control because garlic growing along with many other plants can deter some of the pests you are trying to get. There are already three basic methods that I use to plant these cloves. When you look at the tooth, you will notice that one of the tips is definitely flat and the other is definitely pointed. It's like a little rocket. You want the flat part. The piece should be facing down and you want this pointy piece to be facing up. One way to plant cloves, if you have a lot of them in a row, is to dig a trench.

I like to use a trowel that has measurements just to make sure I'm getting the right depth, so I'll dig the trench to the point where I want the nail base to be and then when the time comes I just place the clothes in the trench and then I cover it and this row is now planted, the row method is quite effective if you are

planting

a border of garlic or placing them in some other section of your garden, but for a bed like this where I want everything to be specifically spaced, no It works so well, especially when starting out. going to the middle of the bed because the rows create soil coming out in all directions so I prefer one of the other two methods when planting like this for accuracy and that's why I like to use a trowel with measurements that I can push the trowel in the soil to the proper depth, just scoop it out and then stick the clove into the bottom of that hole and I can go down the row making sure that each of these items are spaced perfectly.

The third method is to make holes in advance. drill a grid of holes in the ground, drop the clove in and cover it and you're good to go and I used to do that using round pieces of wood, wooden pegs that were measured to the proper depth and I would just make a hole and then leave teeth falling out, but I started to get a little worried about soil compaction. If I push that piece of wood well into the ground, it will compact as I push it and right where the roots grow, that will be the most compacted.

I compacted soil in that hole, so I have since developed this method which is using a hollow piece , this is PVC, it is used in irrigation like in a lawn sprinkler system and what I will do is push this into the soil to the proper depth and when I take it out I usually have a plug of soil left inside this hollow piece and I can just take it out and then I can put the nail in this hole that I've dug and cover it and for me, this works pretty well if the soil is mostly moist, you can just poke a series of holes and be ready to drop your clothes because I've grown a lot garlic over the years and I have done this quite a bit.

But what I find works best for me is to just dig a hole in the tooth, dig a hole in the tooth and continue always making sure I keep the pointy side up and since I have the measurements on the trowel, I can make sure I'm going down. to the exact depth I'm looking for and this works quite well. I can be pretty quick with this, but you can choose the method you like best. I am also growing elephant garlic. technically it's not a garlic, it's a leek, but it tastes like garlic and looks like garlic and gets quite large.

This is a single clove that is about as big as some of the other bulbs before I broke them off because it is larger. To plant it at a depth of twice the height, we also need to give more room for the bulb to develop, so I am spacing this row of elephant garlic at least eight inches apart from the other rows and hoping to get some nice bulbs and robust elephant garlic with everything planted now we take the time to water it very well, very nice deep watering with the bed well watered now it's time to add a thick layer of mulch now I like to use straw, you can easily use dry grass, leaves If you dry out even small wood chips, you want to put some protection in the soil, garlic will actually start to root pretty quickly if we keep this bed watered, even if it's cold outside, even if it's snowing, the roots will continue to grow and this mulch it really helps keep the temperatures warm as long as possible it also helps protect it during the winter because this garlic will be in the ground for nine months in the spring when the weather warms it will re-enter that growth cycle. strong enough to get through all this mulch which is perfectly fine so I like a lighter mulch to make it easier and in the spring it's like a blanket too, it helps keep the soil warmer so the garlic can continue to grow and To help keep the mulch in place I will give it another very thorough watering and this will help the mulch settle into the soil.

The garlic is in the ground and I will treat it like any other seed. I'll continue to water until Keep the soil evenly moist and it won't be long before those little cloves start to take root and the roots will grow until the soil freezes so I have to make sure that as long as the days are warm I'll be here watering. I periodically go out and dip my toe in the bed if it's excessively dry, even during the winter, I add a little bit of water because I don't want those cloves to dry out, they'll go dormant during the winter, but I don't want them to dry out, so watering may be necessary in winter.

If I don't have much snow in the spring, I will look for the new green growth as soon as the ground thaws, the garlic will appear on the in spring, just continue watering the garlic as you would any other plant, adding additional mulch as needed to keep the soil covered and the plants will grow well and you will begin to notice that in the hardneck varieties scapes will develop, these are the little vertical curly signs. which are

complete

ly edible, very tasty, I'm not trying to brag, but this is exactly what garlic should look like. It should be tall, dark green and buds should begin to develop on these hardneck varieties.

This curly signal that develops in the hard neck. It starts out with a nice big curve, but it will straighten out as it grows. That straight scape is a good indication that the plant is getting close to harvest. Garlic plants will tell you when it is time to harvest. You will begin to see golden leaves at the base of the plant, the hardneck varieties will remain upright, but you will notice that three, four, five and then six leaves begin to brown and dry which is a very good indication that it is time to Harvest the hardneck varieties and now their scapes will grow vertically.

I recommend cutting scapes when they are young while they still have that curly shape because they are delicious and there are several ways to eat them, but I allowed these plants to be upright so you could see. what they look like and also so I can show you some pictures of what the garlic seed actually looks like and you can save this seed and plant it if you leave the garlic in the ground and allow some of the seeds to develop the soft neck. Garlic varieties will also brown, but those plants will usually begin to droop and will not stay upright in any case.

What you're looking for is what dying plants look like when you see the leaves drying out; It's often a good idea. to go ahead and just do a test go ahead and dig up some of the bulbs to see how they're developing and this actually looks pretty good. The bulb isn't huge, that's fine, but it's intact and looks like it's ready to harvest. The leaves turn. The brown on garlic plants tells us it's getting closer because each of those dry leaves corresponds to a layer of the protective covering on the individual clothing that you know when you cut the bulb and that papery outer layer is something that comes off. good.

The outer layer corresponds to each of these leaves and we want it to be intact around the cloves, its protection, that is why we are waiting until the point where we have guessed the maturity of the bulb by looking at the leaves. This test excavation shows us that in this case, if the bulb is mature, the cloves are being protected and we are very close to the harvest, so the next step is to leave the garlic in the ground for a few days and stop watering because we want this to begin. outer shell. harden to protect the bulb if we harvest everything when everything is still wet, you risk tearing or breaking this outer layer and your bulbs will not store for as long as they otherwise could, so let the soil dry out a little . a little bit before I move on to the rest of the harvest and one way to harvest pretty efficiently is with a garden fork and I'm just going to stick it in the ground and take advantage of all those garlic bulbs.

You can do this with a shovel or spade, but I find the fork to be very effective, so what I do is loosen the soil and then bend down and pull out the individual bulbs that you don't really want to grab and throw away because you can take the broth out of the plant. , so once the soil is loosened, it becomes very easy to harvest and now I'm just going to bend down and put all these bulbs in while I continue harvesting. I consider that the fork forGarlic is more efficient if you are now growing the same type of garlic.

I have 12 different varieties here and I'm planning on saving some of the clothes to replant in next year's garden and I don't want to mix them all up by just going in with a fork or spade and digging them all up. the bulbs, so I'm going to use a trowel and now, even though it will take me longer, I'm going to go through and dig up each of these bulbs individually so I can keep track of which variety is which as you dig up the cloves. Go ahead and try to remove as much soil as you can, but you don't want to be too hard on the individual bulb because remember this protective layer is still relatively soft, we want it to dry out so I'm going to remove most of the soil. from the roots and for now this bulb looks clean enough and as you continue to dig up the bulbs just place them on the surface of your bed, the sun will help them dry giving it that protection, it will also dry out the soil making it easier brushing if you decide to leave it on the surface make sure no rain is in the forecast for a couple of days and that's all you need is just two days so the sun can help cure those outer layers of the garlic which will give it a good protection for long-term storage.

I'm going with another option and that's the same basic concept. To cure garlic, I let the outer layers dry, but I will do it on the inside, so I just put all the garlic on a newspaper and wait about two or three days for it to dry before cleaning it further. After two days sitting upstairs on a newspaper, I went ahead and cut the stems and tried to remove as much dirt as possible, then I went down, placed it on the newspaper again and waited another three days for it to dry a bit. more to finish cleaning it, I put aside some garlic in my kitchen and this is all down here, I left all the plant labels so I know which is which and I will try to remove the remaining dirt, trim the roots and try to clean this garlic as best as possible to save from now until I plant these cloves back in the ground and here's a trick I learned from my gardening buddy Larry to go ahead and write the name of the garlic and permanent marker directly on the bulb, so now I don't have to worry about them getting mixed up and separated from the plant label when it comes time to plant, I know this is chestnut red and I'm ready to go and now I'll put the clean trimmed and labeled garlic in a box along with plant labels that I can reuse.

Place it in a cool, dry, dark place for about the next two months until I'm ready to put them back in my garden and start all over again. The garlic will be removed easily. store for two or three months between the time I label the bulbs and the time I put the clothes back out for next year's harvest and during that two or three month period, I have plenty of time to explore my garden and figure out where I'm going to plant garlic again, I think it will probably be this little bit. I have some pumpkins and cucumbers growing now.

I have been getting excellent crops. Many more harvests to come, but in about a month I will have them. my first frost and it will kill these plants well when these plants are dead I will pull them out I will revitalize the soil I will add more organic material and then it will be ready to plant again it is ready for garlic so you have seen the whole cycle, how can we start with the cloves, get there all the way to harvest, save our bulbs and then plant again, so once you find a variety you like or a garlic that works great in your area, try this from start to finish and again.

You will have garlic as long as you have a garden. I hope you learned something from this video and if you did well, consider subscribing to the Gardener Scott channel if you haven't already and click the bell to find out when new videos are coming out and be sure to share this video with other garlic growers. Let him know they might be interested. I'm Gardener Scott, I enjoy gardening.