Garlic is an unusual garden vegetable that can be a great addition to any garden. When it sends up its flower stalk, garlic makes an attractive ornamental. And for folks who love fresh garlic, it is perfect in a kitchen garden.
Garlic can be treated as a fall crop to be harvested the following spring or summer or it can be grown as a perennial. Garlic should be planted six weeks before a hard freeze. Our normal first freeze date is October 31. Purchasing garlic cloves now and getting them in the ground before a hard freeze gives plenty of time for a strong root system to be established.
Garlic is started from individual cloves. Each clove produces a shoot, which continues to develop over the winter and into the spring. Tops may die down with a hard winter but if the root system is well-established, the clove will survive the winter and new shoots appear when temperatures warm in the spring. During the spring growth period cloves will swell, divide, and begin to mature during the long summer; by harvest a full garlic ‘head’ will form. There is an anecdote that goes: “plant on Halloween and harvest on July 4” (information from Agua Caliente grower).
To plant, select an area that is well drained and receives full sun. Clean the area in which the garlic cloves are to be planted then prepare the garlic bed by cultivating the soil to a one-foot depth, amend with organic matter and mix well.
Purchase seed garlic from reputable sources. There are two kinds of garlic: hard-neck varieties for northern climates that send up a strong central stalk in the spring and soft-neck varieties for milder climates. The seed garlic grown in our hardiness zone are soft-neck varieties.
Choose large cloves for seed, as the largest cloves form the biggest bulbs. Place seed cloves pointy end up, 2 inches deep. Adequate spacing is important for bulbs to size up, therefore place cloves no closer than 6 inches from the next clove with rows at least 6 inches apart. Because garlic roots are shallow consistent watering is essential, especially as roots become established. Consistent moisture produces then largest cloves. When growth resumes in the spring fertilize with nitrogen and apply nitrogen several times throughout the growing season.
Harvest bulbs when leaves senesce by gently lifting bulbs, keeping cloves intact. Dry soft-neck varieties under dark, dry conditions at room temperature.
Ellen Peffley Harp, a retired professor of horticulture at Texas Tech University, writes about gardening for several Texas newspapers.
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