Garlic is a potent vegetable that add flavor and nutrients to many dishes. How to Plant and Harvest Garlic will give basic instructions with preparing your soil, what season to begin planting and how to harvest and store garlic.
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My family eats a lot of garlic! We like to add it to Crock Pot Beef and Bacon Stew and soups/chili’s like Gluten Free White Chicken Chili.
Our garlic planting story began about ten years ago. Some good friends from Pennsylvania grew thousands of garlic every year. They set us our first “seed garlic”. The variety was Porcelain which is a hardneck garlic and Polish white which is a soft neck garlic.
We live surrounded by woods and have part sun-part shade, so we’re often challenged with growing a productive garden. After one season of garlic, we realized that it’s the perfect vegetable for us to grow.
In Michigan, garlic is planted in mid-October, when most of the leaves are off the trees. The main growing season has plenty of light and moisture. Our garlic is ready to harvest early July.
First Two Steps – How to Plant and Harvest Garlic
- Prepare your garlic bed/soil. We prefer raised beds for planting garlic.
- Chose your garlic varieties. Order online: Territorial Seed Company
Softneck Garlic versus Hardneck Garlic
Hardneck varieties have a long flowering stem that grows out the center of the bulb. This flower is called a “garlic scape”. It can be sniped off to be used in garlic dishes or stir fry. When the scape is left alone it will form a terminal pod in which little bulbils are formed.
You can harvest the bulbils and plant them. After harvesting, plant them again until they mature into forming several cloves.
Hardneck varieties tend to produce large cloves ranging anywhere from four to twelve cloves on one bulb.
5 Varieties of Hardneck
- Rocamboles. Rocambole Garlic is one of the most widely grown garlic varieties. It is one of the favorite varieties. It’s known for its robust, well-rounded, true garlic flavor. The raw heat from this garlic is nicely balanced by a deep and rich flavor, with sweet undertones. Rocamboles have loose skins and are easy to peel. Bulbs can be large and characteristically have 8-12 cloves.
- Porcelains. Porcelain Garlic is the most impressive garlic plant. It grows lush and tall, and the bulbs can get very large. 4-6 huge cloves per bulb. Easy peeling with great market appeal. Grows well in Northern climates, at the same time doing better in Southern climates than many other hardnecks. Porcelains also have the highest allicin content, the sulfur compound that gives garlic its therapeutic benefits. It stores well and can last well into the spring.
- Purple Stripes. This variety has vivid purple coloration and striping in the clove skins. It grows best in cooler Northern climates with cold winters. Bulbs produce between 8 – 12 cloves. They store slightly longer and are easily peeled. The cloves are generally arrayed in a single layer around the flower stalk, though very large bulbs may have inner cloves. Purple Stripes are fantastic culinary garlics. They have a strong, complex and rich garlic flavor, without being overly sulfurous.
- Glazed Purple Stripe. The bulbs are medium in size with large, stocky cloves that sit between Purple Stripes and Marbled Purple Stripes in shape and size. The flavor is described as moderate heat, producing a warm, but not over-powering, taste – rich and complex.
One More Purple Variety
Marbled Purple Stripes. Genetically different than Purple Stripe, Marbled Purple Stripe grows well in Northern climates, but can do well in Southern climates as well. This variety is popular due to their consistent clove size, consistent taste, dependable growth in the garden and field, and relatively long storage life (six months and more). They have more cloves (5-7 large cloves per bulb) than Porcelains, but fewer than Purple Stripes. They can be quite hot when raw, smooth and mellow when cooked. Somewhere between a Porcelain and a Purple Stripe in flavor while providing good overall garlic character to many recipes.
2 Varieties of Soft-neck Garlic
Two of the most common varieties are silverskin and artichoke.
Silverskins are high yielding, adaptable to many climates. This type can easily braided and stored. The most common plant varieties for silverskins are; Polish White, Chet’s Italian Red and Kettle River Giant.
Artichoke varieties have multiple overlapping layers containing up to 20 cloves. The coloring is white to off-white with a thick, hard-to-peel outer layer. They have one of the longest shelf lives, up to eight months. Common varities include Polish Red, Red Toch, Early Red Italian and Galiano.
Amazon Link: Kejora Fresh Siberian Hardneck Garlic Bulb 6 Count – Organic USDA Certified
How to Plant and Harvest Garlic – First the Planting
Preparing your garlic bed is an important step that needs to be done before you plant your garlic seeds. Fill a 8-10″ raised bed with quality planting soil, next stir in local compost, and lastly top off with a thin layer of coconut fiber. We recently added that last step and it makes for wonderful soil.
Once your soil is dry you can begin planting. I recommend using a string to make nice even rows. Rows need to be at least 1′- 2′ apart. Your seed cloves will be 4″-6″ apart. Tip: I usually take a 6″ stick to mark between my cloves, plus it’s helpful for children who like to help plant.
Plant the garlic clove with the pointy side up approximately 1″ in the soil.
Gently cover your garlic cloves and pat with a how. Spread a thin layer of straw over the entire bed. You’re all set until spring!
Harvesting Garlic
Your garlic is ready to harvest when the stalks begin to wilt. For those in the mid-west that happens around the 4th of July.
Pull up your garlic and set it dry in a cool, preferable dark place. You basically don’t want it set it out in the sun to dry. We spread ours out on cardboard and let it “cure” or dry on a cement in our crawl space. Cool, dry garage floors work well too.
Once they stalks are dried, you’ll need an old toothbrush and scissors. Cut the roots and stalks off & use the toothbrush to clean off the dirt. Next is storing your garlic.
Storing Garlic
The three components to successfully storing garlic are dry area, room temperature and good air circulation.
We chose to store ours in sturdy mesh bags. When you order garlic, they will usually come in a mesh bag. After planting, set your bags aside until harvest. Hang in a dark pantry that has air ventilation.
During the spring you might see your garlic begin to sprout. Store it in the refrigerator until you use it all up.
You can also preserve your garlic in canning jars: How to Preserve Garlic.
How to Plant and Harvest Garlic
This year I ordered all hardback garlic varieties: purple glazer, premium northern white and blanak. Garlic is a fun crop to plant and watch it grow. It’s hassle free with very little weeding.
What varieties did you chose to plant? Share with others in the comment section.
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