I like to wrap up fall gardening with planting something.  Garlic is an easy New England crop and it’s great to have something to look forward to for next year already in the ground when winter arrives. Nothing compares with fresh garlic from your garden and now is the time to sow your garlic, along with many other bulbs that will be the first things up next spring.  Let’s look at a few tricks to have a successful garlic crop year after year using science and some old-time knowledge.

As with anything we grow the first decision is which variety to select.  Genetics is the basis for all life and we should always try to get the best for local conditions.  Garlic is in the onion (Allium) family so cultivation needs are similar to onions.  Garlic includes about 10 varieties and it can be divided into two major groups, “Hardneck” and “Softneck”.  Both are good and can be grown in Vermont, but most people favor Hardneck for its hardiness and great flavor.  Softneck garlic is the principle garlic grown commercially in California and stores very well.  Personally, I’ve had best luck with Hardnecks but you can try both. 

Garlic doesn’t produce reliable quantities of seeds so is mostly propagated “vegetatively” from cloves.  That means the genetics of the next generation will be the same as the parents so if you have a variety that does well and you like the flavor you can stay with it by keeping some of your own bulbs to plant for next year.  A good rule of thumb to estimate quantity is that a pound of garlic bulbs will have up to 50 cloves.  Not all the cloves will be large enough to plant (eat the smallest ones!) so you may end up with 40 cloves to plant.  Bigger cloves produce bigger, more vigorous plants. Unfortunately, most supermarket garlic has been treated with an anti-growth chemical and some garlic has even had its roots cut out to hide any diseases it might carry.  Source your seed garlic locally and then save your own each year.

Saving your own garlic for re-planting year after year is economical but also makes great sense.  Every garden has a unique set of conditions including soil, moisture, micro-climate, and biology.  If you select and save the best of your own garlic for planting, you will be taking advantage of the vital process of natural selection to continually improve your own garlic each year.  I have been saving my own best garlic for eight years by selecting out for planting the biggest, best looking bulbs.  I have seen the results of ever larger plants and bulbs that are now over double the size of the original garlic.  Just as my Fenn Selection is best suited for my local conditions, your garlic will become a superior line adapted to your own soil and microclimate. The whole process is not unlike a livestock breeder who keeps the best animals aside for breeding, certainly never eating the “prize bull or cow”.

Hardneck varieties also produce “bulbils” on the end of their scapes or false flower shoots in July.  These are also vegetative small bulbs and can be planted like larger cloves but will take 2-3 years to produce full sized bulbs for harvest and use.  Bulbils are produced in large numbers so it’s an economical way to increase your crop but leaving the scapes on the plant to produce bulbils will also reduce the size of the bulb harvested.  That’s why most growers remove scapes and use them as a delicious food or flavoring themselves.  This year I left a few scapes just to have some bulbils to get started.

Whether you purchased “seed garlic” (selected bulbs) or saved some of your own we’re now in the planting season, generally from mid-October until mid-November, depending on the weather.  I’ve read that you can plant garlic until the soil starts to freeze or is snow covered.  What’s important is that the bulbs get just enough time to begin growing their roots but not enough time to send a shoot above the ground that gets frozen and dies back.  The small roots will give the garlic a head start come early spring and the over wintering provides the necessary cold treatment garlic needs to form bulbs next summer.

Alliums are all heavy feeders so do best in deep, fertile, well-drained (never water-logged) soils.  As with all root crops, the deeper soil provided by a raised bed will encourage better growth.  A soil pH of 6-7 is ideal so a soil test is recommended (see the details in my September 18 article).  Since garlic is an early grower, it’s best to put the essential nutrients in the soil when planting.  My practice to apply a layer of compost (1-2 inches deep) over the bed surface.  No need to work it in, nature will take care of that over the winter and create a rich organic matter that garlic and onions prefer.  I plant a double row in raised beds spaced about 1 foot apart by digging two parallel long trenches with a hoe or trench tool to a depth of 4-5 inches.  Before planting I then apply a sprinkled layer of rock phosphate or colloidal phosphate plus azomite (for micronutrients) mixed 50-50 along the trench bottom to make the trench snowy white.  Bone meal would do the same plus provide some nitrogen.  These are organic, slow release sources of phosphate and potassium needed for that early growth in spring.

Plant the selected cloves, pointy end up and the flat, root end down (yes, it matters) spaced 6 inches apart.  Too close and your bulbs will tend to be smaller as each plant needs its root space.  Cover the planted trench with soil and gently tamp it down. The top of each clove should be about 1-2 inches below the surface when covered.  Be sure you have marked the ends of each row with visible stakes so you will know where to watch for the first shoots of spring.  Finally, cover your garlic bed with about 6 inches of straw, very gently tamped down so fall winds don’t blow it away.  The straw is very important to prevent freezing and heaving of the cloves during winter plus will suppress the spring growth of weeds and keep the young plants moist during their critical early summer growth.

I’m sure you will feel personal satisfaction from getting your garlic planted.  It’s a great feeling knowing that your first garden crop of the next year is sown and already started when the last autumn leaves are still falling!

By the way, the same mix of rock phosphate & azomite or bone meal is an excellent way to boost any other bulbs you plant in the fall.  Give each bulb (tulip, daffodil, crocus, etc.) about a level teaspoon of this starter and they will have the nutrients for strong roots and vigorous growth for several years to come.

Don’t overlook the value of compost for your garden and yard.  Mower-shredded leaves plus kitchen wastes make a great compost and we have an abundance of leaves right now!.  Here’s a new short video to help you get your own compost started.

What did you learn in your garden this year?  What are you going to do differently next year?  Please share your knowledge and ideas.  Got questions?  Suggestions?   Leave a message in the Comments below.