How to Grow Garlic Plants

Did you know that growing garlic is easy and inexpensive? This wikiHow article will teach you how to grow garlic, including seeding, care, harvesting, and storage.

Table of Contents

Preparing to plant garlic

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Know when to plant garlic in your area. In general, the best time to plant garlic is in mid-autumn or early spring.

Garlic grows well in many climates. However, areas with high temperature and humidity or where there is a lot of rain are not ideal places for garlic to grow well.

Choose a planting site and prepare the soil. Garlic needs a lot of full sun, but can also tolerate partial shade, as long as the shade is not too long during the day or throughout the growing season. The soil for growing garlic must be thoroughly plowed and beaten. Ideally, sandy soil mixed with loamy soil.

Before adding nutrients to the soil, you should know what is in the soil. If your soil has never been tested, contact the extension office for a soil sample set. ^{[1] X Research Source}
Make sure the soil is well drained. Clay is not suitable for growing garlic.
Use compost and manure to add nutrients to the soil before planting garlic.

Source fresh garlic. Garlic is grown with cloves of garlic – which can be called seeds for this purpose – so what you need to do before you grow garlic is to buy fresh garlic. Pick up garlic at the store, or better yet, at the local produce stand or farmers market. It is very important to choose fresh and good quality garlic bulbs. If possible, choose organic garlic to avoid chemical spraying.

Choose fresh garlic bulbs with large branches. Avoid picking bulbs that are starting to soften.
Each clove of garlic will grow into a garlic plant; You need to keep this in mind when estimating the number of garlic bulbs to buy.
If you have sprouted garlic bulbs at home, great.
Nurseries also provide garlic bulbs for planting. You can visit nurseries if you want to find a special variety of garlic or ask about local garlic growing conditions.
Online seed stores or postal delivery also offer a variety of garlic varieties and will have specific instructions for growing the variety you purchase.

Growing garlic

Separate garlic cloves of fresh garlic bulbs. Be careful not to break the garlic clove at the base, where it sticks to the bulb. Garlic will not grow if the base is damaged.

Plant large branches. The smaller branches will take up less space in the planting tray, but they will also produce much smaller bulbs.

Press each garlic clove into the ground. Place the tip of the garlic clove facing up, about 5 cm deep into the ground.

Garlic branches should be spaced about 20 cm apart for the best growing conditions.

Use mulch to spread over the newly planted garlic cloves. Suitable mulches are hay, dry leaves, straw, compost, well-rotted manure or completely rotted grass.

Fertilize or spread compost over the garlic cloves. Garlic plants need to be mixed fertilizer when starting to grow.

Fertilize again in the spring if you plant the garlic in the fall, or in the fall if you plant in the spring.

Taking care of garlic plants

Water the plant if necessary. Newly planted garlic needs moisture for roots to grow. However, do not water too much, otherwise the garlic will not grow well, and may even rot if watered in cold months.

Water well once a week if it doesn’t rain. It is not necessary to water garlic unless it is dry, in which case you should water sparingly because garlic does not like wet soil.
Gradually reduce the number of waterings as the weather warms up. Garlic plants need warm, dry summers for garlic bulbs to grow.

Beware of harmful organisms. Insects, rats and other creatures can come to eat garlic or nest among garlic plants. You should be on the lookout for the following pests:

Aphids seem to love the leaves and buds of garlic flowers. However, they are easy to treat – you just need to rub them with your fingers and kill them.
Many people plant garlic underneath rose plants to prevent aphids; Roses can repel aphids.
Rats and other small animals sometimes nest in the mantle. If your area has rats, you may want to consider replacing it with plastic mulch or a garden blanket.

Garlic harvest

Use some rolling pins. As the garlic plant begins to grow, long green stalks called flower stalks will grow. You can pull the flower handles up to eat if you like. The best part of the flower stalk is the young and tender top.

This can damage the garlic bulbs, so don’t pull out the stalks from all the garlic plants.
Use gloves when withdrawing flower stalks; otherwise the garlic smell will stick to your hands for a few days.

Watch for signs that it’s time to harvest garlic. You can harvest garlic bulbs when you feel the cloves in the bulb, and the leaves turn yellow or brown.

You need to harvest the garlic when the stalks begin to dry, otherwise the bulbs will “melt” and split into separate cloves.
Start harvesting in late summer. In many places, harvesting can continue into the fall.
In some warm climates, you can harvest garlic earlier.

Use a shovel or garden tiller to loosen the soil around each garlic bulb. Pull the garlic bulbs out of the ground. If you use a cultivator, be careful not to hit the garlic bulbs lying on the ground.

Be careful while digging, because garlic is often prone to chipping and bruising.
The garlic plants should be left unwashed, then hung up to “treat” for two weeks. The ideal temperature in this process is 26.7°C. After the drying period is over, the outer shell of the garlic will peel off, leaving the inner shell. Cut off the roots and tops, then store in a cool and dry place.
Washing the garlic will prolong the processing time and may cause the garlic to rot. In addition, if left untreated, garlic will rot very quickly when stored in the refrigerator.

Preserving garlic

Store garlic in a cool and dry place indoors. Dried garlic can be stored in a jar dedicated to preserving garlic (usually made of ceramic). You can also separate each garlic clove if needed.

Bundle or braid garlic into bunches. You can keep the dried garlic leaves for braiding or braiding and hanging garlic in the kitchen, both convenient and beautiful.

Store garlic in oil or vinegar. Garlic cloves can be preserved in oil or vinegar. However, to avoid conditions for bacteria to grow, you should store it in the refrigerator or eat it quickly.

CAUTION: Use extreme caution when preparing garlic-flavored oils or storing garlic in oil. Do not store garlic in oil at room temperature. An oil-garlic mixture stored at room temperature creates the ideal conditions for botulism production (low acidity, no free oxygen, and warm temperatures). The same risk applies to roasted garlic preserved in oil.

Advice

Large garlic cloves usually produce similar sized garlic bulbs.
Save a garlic bulb or two after harvesting to separate each branch and plant the following fall.
Mix the loamy soil with sandy soil and plant the garlic. Very effective!
Garlic tolerates cold very well. You can plant garlic in the fall, leave it in the ground over winter, and harvest it the following summer.
While it’s perfectly possible to grow garlic using store-bought bulbs or farm produce, if you want, try growing different varieties of garlic. Visit nurseries or online stores for more choices, including varieties of garlic in different colors.
If you can only harvest a small garlic, do not be disappointed. You can use it to grow more garlic!
Harvest the garlic when the undersides of the leaves turn brown and there are 5-6 leaves left. These leaves will dry out and form a thin outer shell that protects the garlic, extending its shelf life.
Another way to grow garlic if you don’t have a lot of space is to use water to sprout garlic. Look online for how to grow garlic in water.

Warning

Don’t let the garlic dry on the ground. Then the garlic will be separated.
Do not freeze garlic bulbs. It will crumble and become unsuitable for reuse.

Things you need

Garlic cloves
Well-rotted manure, manure or compost.
Dried grass, straw, rotted grass clippings (mulch)
Irrigation tools
Shovel or tiller

Steps