Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Garlic (
Allium sativum
)
Garlic is one of those plants I think a lot of gardeners overlook, but it's a must in our garden.
Delicious seasoning in the kitchen and incredibly beneficial for health, garlic is something we use
on a near-daily basis at our house. Growing garlic is easy and when you save your own seed stock
you'll find yourself with a strain uniquely suited for your local area.
Garlic grows best when it's planted like the bulb that it is—in the fall at the same time you'd
plant your daffodils. While you can plant in early spring, the bulbs will be much smaller. Plant
in the fall when you start taking everything else out, and let it grow until you add the last of your
tomatoes and eggplants at the start of summer.
To sow your garlic you won't start with seeds, but rather with seed stock of whole garlic heads.
Break the heads apart into individual cloves and plant them 2 to 4 inches deep with the root side
toward the ground. Loosen the soil in the row around the garlic, making sure it's easy to work, so
the heads will grow as large as possible.
Mulch over in the winter to protect from the heaviest freezes; however, most garlic varieties will
survive through zone 5. In the spring the garlic continues growing until summer when the leaves
begin yellowing. The yellowing leaves are your cue to harvest.
Dig up the garlic cloves and let them
cure
for two weeks. There are two main types of garlic:
softneck and hardneck. Softneck garlic can be braided because it doesn't put out a central flower-
ing stalk. Hardneck garlic often has a stronger flavor and will produce an edible flowering stalk.
Hardneck garlic doesn't tend to store as well, but softneck garlic can store up until the following
spring.
deFinitiOn
curing
a vegetable means letting the skin dry after picking so it will last longer in storage without rotting.
Vegetables that generally benefit from curing include potatoes, onions, garlic, and winter squashes.
The flowering stalk, or seed scape, of hardneck garlic will grow in a large spiral around the leaves,
and then end with the flower, which forms bulblets. These can be planted and will produce addi-
tional garlic, which is a nice way to increase seed stock supply in a pinch, or cut off the flowering
stalk for slightly larger heads. For most gardeners you'll want to cut the scapes off and use them in
the kitchen so they don't go to waste.
Garlic shares diseases that plague onions, too, so watch out for things like onion white rot or rust.
Garlic cloves may also rot if spring is very damp and rainy. A virus called yellowing virus can also
spread in stock that isn't clean, so it is often best to start with certified clean seed stock. Rotating
crops in the garden area can also help with all these problems.
