Fun, I have garlic! (Oh crap, now what?)

[KathyDC]

After seeing [mention]GoDawgs[/mention] post about adventures-with-garlic, on a whim a few months ago I preordered some bulbs from Keene. I just got a ship notice, which is very exciting! But I've never grown garlic before, so now I'm on a panic-research binge about what to do.

I'm generally planning to put them in along the side of my house/fence, south side of the house, which gets full sun (morning until mid-late afternoon). It's a fairly narrow strip, but I figure I'll have room for two long rows.

I got Chesnok Red and Georgian Fire.

As the tomato growing season winds down, it makes me happy to think of something else to play with, and I love learning about new stuff. So if you have any personal recommendations please help a gal out! Links are appreciated, too.

My first concern is: How to plant them out. I've watched a few YT videos and it seems simple enough. Should I amend the soil first, and if so with what? How about something like straw or mulch covering once they're sowed? Or nah? Water regularly, just once, something else?

Garlic ho,
Kathy

[wykvlvr]

So glad someone else did this. No ship notice yet but I have started pulling weeds and dying plants from the bed I will add the garlic to...

[KathyDC]

So glad someone else did this. No ship notice yet but I have started pulling weeds and dying plants from the bed I will add the garlic to...

Haha! We're in this together!

[GoDawgs]

Here are a few links that I have gathered along the way. The Grey Duck site also has special instructions for growing garlic in the South.

http://greyduckgarlic.com/first-time-ga ... guide.html

https://www.southernexposure.com/growin ... de-web.pdf (includes a variety of alliums)

https://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/pl ... arlic.html

Everybody has their own tips and tricks depending on their location and situation. I usually put together what seems to be the most logical tips for my own garlic and then tweak it from there as time and experience indicate. Overall, good loose soil, proper planting depth, mulching well and moderate watering seem to be the biggest keys to success. Planting depth seems to vary by location according to your winter temps. Down here 2-3" is fine. Maybe deeper where you are? You'll have to check.

Good luck with your garlic! Once you've made your own garlic powder you'll never go back to store bought!

[bower]

Congratulations on joining the garlic fun!
As GoDawgs says, everyone's soil is different and my own preps also depend on what I have available and what the condition is of the bed in mind. I generally add some lime (our wet climate is constantly acidifying the soil) and dig in some compost and rake it flat before dibbling the holes. This year I have some well rotted horse manure. At the farm we sometimes amended with a bit of chicken pellets and kelp meal, sometimes not. I often use some bone meal in the planting hole, as our soils are phosphorus deficient. Ferts that are too soluble would probably be ill advised, as most would wash away during the winter before the plants can get to it. Some people also feed their garlic plants some N ferts in the spring instead.

One advice about your two varieties. Chesnok Red is a standard purple stripe, and Georgian Fire is a porcelain. That tells me Georgian Fire is probably a very tall plant, while the purple stripes are by nature shorter, and they produce scapes and mature their bulbs a week or two later than porcelains.
So you want to think about that when you decide how to plant them - so the shorter variety isn't shaded out by the tall one. And expect the porcelain to be harvested first, if that affects your configuration (probably not with two rows, but it can be a consideration).

[KathyDC]

Thanks, these look helpful! I especially appreciate the zone-specific stuff. I'm in 7a up here, our average last frost is usually around mid to late October, so I'm just about a month out. So I'll probably get these planted this weekend or next -- I might stick them in the fridge for a week or so. Haven't decided yet, but I've read that chilling them first like that can help them grow bigger.

[KathyDC]

Congratulations on joining the garlic fun!
As GoDawgs says, everyone's soil is different and my own preps also depend on what I have available and what the condition is of the bed in mind. I generally add some lime (our wet climate is constantly acidifying the soil) and dig in some compost and rake it flat before dibbling the holes. This year I have some well rotted horse manure. At the farm we sometimes amended with a bit of chicken pellets and kelp meal, sometimes not. I often use some bone meal in the planting hole, as our soils are phosphorus deficient. Ferts that are too soluble would probably be ill advised, as most would wash away during the winter before the plants can get to it. Some people also feed their garlic plants some N ferts in the spring instead.

One advice about your two varieties. Chesnok Red is a standard purple stripe, and Georgian Fire is a porcelain. That tells me Georgian Fire is probably a very tall plant, while the purple stripes are by nature shorter, and they produce scapes and mature their bulbs a week or two later than porcelains.
So you want to think about that when you decide how to plant them - so the shorter variety isn't shaded out by the tall one. And expect the porcelain to be harvested first, if that affects your configuration (probably not with two rows, but it can be a consideration).

That's helpful, thanks! These will be planted east to west on the south side of my house, so I think on balance they shouldn't create problems for each other. But I may plant the taller variety up closer to the fence, just to be safe.

[brownrexx]

I am also in 7a and I always mulch over the top of my garlic bed. This prevents the soil from pushing the cloves up out of the bed if there is a lot of freezing and thawing. Mulch keeps the soil temperature more even.

I usually plant mine about the middle of October. I have never refrigerated the cloves before planting. Not saying that it may not be a good idea. I have just never heard of that or done it.

[pondgardener]

Hopefully Martin, [mention]Paquebot[/mention], will respond with some of his ideas about garlic planting. Linked below is one way I am going to try this Fall.
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=1401&p=25033#p24972

[pepperhead212]

I got my garlic order (made way back, just after they opened the sales for this season) from Keene's Saturday. Nothing new this season, but I got an old one I grew quite a while back, with good results - Hardy German Porcelain, to go with Metechi and Estonian Red. I just have to figure out where! lol

[zendog]

I'm just over in Arlington and have found garlic to be pretty easy here. I've planted at various times from late October to as late as the end of January and I actually haven't seen that much difference in size or harvest times for either, although I prefer to put them in when I'm cleaning up the last of fall crops. Since we have a fairly mild winter, I haven't mulched and haven't seen any issues because of that, although it might be more helpful with moisture regulation than with any frost issues so I'm going to give it a try this year.

I've grown a number of varieties, including Georgian Fire which has done well for me and I will grow again this year. The biggest issue is probably our heavier clay soils (at least over here across the river) combined with prolonged wet weather and heavy rains. I've amended the soil in my beds and that helps, but since I was starting with heavy clay soil it only lightens up so much and can still retain water in the low spots. Almost all the cloves I plant come up, but I'll lose about 5% (10% in a bad year) to disease/rot when it is really wet. If drainage might be an issue for you, I'd try to hill up your rows a bit so the bulbs aren't too low.

This year I also had a fair amount of witches brooming (side shoots) in one small planting in a particular bed. I think it was probably after the heavier rains in Spring it started, but it also be due to too much nitrogen since I may have thrown down some 10-10-10 too heavily and then the rain took it directly to the plants. The same variety in another bed that was higher up didn't have any issue.

Good luck! Garlic is a lot of fun to grow and it is great to get the scapes to play around with in the kitchen.

[KathyDC]

[mention]zendog[/mention] Hey neighbor! I'm in MD, but barely - about two blocks over the line from NE DC. My office is in Rosslyn, not that I've been there in months. But, theoretically, I guess! Anyway, we have terrible clay soil here also. My own yard doesn't seem to have a ton of it unless you really dig down -- I think at some point this lot must have had some fill dirt dumped -- but drainage here can be an issue. I am in the middle of a decently-sloped hill, though, so I tend to not end up retaining as much water in the yard as others in my area do. But in general, for sure.

Anyway, my plan is to plant it in an area that's never been planted - it's actually a really ugly terrible spot next to my neighbor's derelict fence, which is practically crumbling. But it's the only area that I have to plant that would be unused long enough to wait for them to mature next spring/summer. Most of my back yard is dedicated to tomatoes and other veggies, and I don't really have a spot for it. So this will be an experiment in several ways! Speaking of which, [mention]zendog[/mention] when are yours usually ready for harvest?

[mention]brownrexx[/mention] The soil in that area has never been amended so I think I'm going to dig some trenches, amend with compost and then use whatever is left as mulch on top.

I just checked the Farmers Almanac and it looks like Oct. 3-5 is a good time to plant hardy root crops, so that'll be my planting weekend. I don't normally follow the moon cycles for planting, but my great grandmother, who was a farmer, always swore on it so I'll give it a try.

[Paquebot]

There is always the question of when to plant. Until the last couple decades, northern zones were recommended for spring planting. That's how I grew it for about 20 years. Somewhere along the was it was switched to fall planting. But, it is not one-size-fits-all. It goes by zones Zone 3 would be 1-15 September. Zone 4 would be 15-30 September. 15 days are added per zone to 8.

But, I often said that 31 December is the latest that one can plant and 1 January the earliest. I did that one time to prove a point. Used a hatchet to chop holes on 31 December. Left some with no mulch and covered some with 6" of shredded leaves. Didn't matter as all came up at the same time.

What I do not like to see is a lot of fall growth. There was one year in the 1980s when winter refused to come. Joke going around was that deer hunters were looking for blaze orange Bermuda shorts. I kept adding straw until it was 8" thick and gave up when it kept growing above that. Did not get any super harvest since virtually all of that growth eventually froze and the plants had to replace it. Being on the edge of Zones 4 and 5, I now aim for first week of October and don't have to worry about losing fall growth. If I see a tiny green spear peeking up, that is sufficient.

Martin

[bjbebs]

For me in central Illinois we are now at 5b. Started bringing in manure at home and did a rough till. Down at the beaches until Monday. Big garden is ready to go and will start Oct. 1 and hopefully finish around the 10th. Home garden will go in before the 15th. Will mulch heavy with leaves about Nov. 1. I want to see 4-5" of good growth before Dec. 1. All of my soils drain like a sieve and are rich. No worry about rot in March. When they come out of dormancy they have 3 full months to make a bulb and another three weeks to plump up. Out of the ground about July 10 on average. Dry, cure and store. Select seed for the following year and the process starts again.

It's important to have your plots ready to go a good 2 or 3 weeks ahead of time. If they are ready, a rainy period will not set you back. A couple days of sun and wind and you're back at it

[Paquebot]

Prepping ahead of time is good idea and one I use. The bed was tilled several weeks ago to work in some compost and what was left of the mulch. Yesterday aged horse manure was spread at the rate of about one gallon per square foot. May seem like a lot but it's just what garlic needs. Today the Mantis tilled it in and the bed is now marked out for 102 plants. There no doubt will be rain between now and planting but doesn't matter. Just poke a hole and plant. Garlic won't care if the soil is loose or firm.

Martin

[ponyexpress]

I’m in Massachusetts and I plant mine at the end of October and up to the second week of November. I space mine 6” apart in rows 1ft apart. Make sure when you plant that you put the basal plate end down. A new tip I learned this year is to orient the cloves the same way in each hole so that the garlic fan leaves go in the same direction.

I plant mine about 5-6” deep and cover with a thick layer of straw, about 5-6”. I don’t take the straw off in the spring. The hard necks will grow through it without any trouble. The soft neck varieties might need a little help.

[zendog]

@zendog when are yours usually ready for harvest?

I normally remember harvesting between the last week of June and first week of July. This year I pulled everything on June 23, which seemed a bit earlier than normal I think, but this has been an odd year for growing a lot of things. The garlic is usually ready about 15-20 days after the scapes. By the way, the scapes keep very well if you cut them and immediately put them in a bag in the fridge. I've eaten them as much as 2 months after harvest and not noticed any that looked like they were close to going bad.

[bower]

All this talk of when is making me realize how close we are to the time, and I have nothing prepped. There are still some vegs in the beds where garlic will go for sure, and more space to open up is another question. But we're having crazy warm weather this week, summer warm for us in the low 70's F.

We have planted at different times ranging early October to early December. The late plantings were not so successful (not to mention it was very unpleasant due to the miserable cold). Mid October seems to be the most usual time, with the most reliable results. We do not see growth above ground until spring, zero. Our season is over October 31, with less than ten hours of sunlight per day, although the ground may not be frozen until January (or as early as November in another year). I have wondered if we should plant even earlier - well it won't happen this year for sure!

As for depth, I aim to have three clove heights above the planted clove. So the hole is meant to be 4X the clove, or about 4 inches deep for typical stock. Our winter tends to compact the soil and push them deeper, the bulbs end up 5-6 inches below.

I recall harvesting a row of garlic at my friend's farm that were unevenly dibbled and some were much shallower than others. The shallow bulbs only 2- 3 inches or so below ground were much smaller, the largest bulbs were the deepest ones, and some were 6 or 7 deep. YMMV as our winters are doubtless very different, but there is an optimal depth for your situation, which will give you the best crop. I have read that too deep means they have trouble emerging, so there is a limit to planting deeper as well.

[Paquebot]

As long as depth has been mentioned, I have found that it does not matter if the cloves are placed barely under the surface or 5" deep. They mature bulb are all going to be at least 6' below the surface when dug. At We Grow Garlic, cordless bulb auger was used for a few years to make holes about 5''. (One time Mike and I planted 3,200 cloves one day in frozen ground. He drilled and I dropped cloves and scratched enough soil to cover them. When we got up to 25,000 or more, meant a lot of extra batteries and time. I decided to use a Mantis to make a row and just poke the closes into the loose soil. Best idea ever!

Now, let's get technical and look at the whole picture. I've been a stickler for everyone learning the root systems and how best to accommodate them. General knowledge is that nearly every plant's feeder root range is the first 6" to 8" of soil. Plows and tillers all are set up for that range and few gardeners will work deeper. So, ponder this. If you place your nutrients in the first 6" or soil and plant the cloves 6" deep, where will they find those nutrients?

Martin

[svalli]

My planting work is now done and I am happy. I prepared the ground, made the beds, planted 1140 cloves and mulched the beds with leaves yesterday. This feels great.

Weather is still relatively warm and there has not been killing frost, but I do not like to leave the planting for too late. We usually get a lot of rain during fall and since I can do the planting only during weekends, it is best to do when Saturday weather is nice.

PSX_20201004_140753.jpg

Sari