Garlic is a must grow for me. We probably use 1 bulb per week which means we need around 52 bulbs to see us through the year. And yes, we could just buy from the supermarket, it’s not that expensive. But there’s so much more to garlic than meets the eye!
Choosing Varieties
There are over 600 named varieties of garlic in the world, each one unique in taste, strength, colour, and size. There are 2 main types of garlic that we’re going to look at, Hardneck and Softneck.
Hardneck garlic tends to have a much stronger taste than softneck and also gives us an added bonus of garlic scapes. Scapes are flowering stems that are sent up in summer and they taste delicious! Simply snap them off 2/3 of the way down the stem and then enjoy stir-fried or added to any dish of your choice.
The downfall to Hardneck varieties is that they don’t tend to store as well, usually only a few months so make sure to use these first. You can also blitz the cloves in a blender and then freeze in ice cube trays. I’ve done this a few times and its brilliant.
Softneck varieties will store for around 9 months which means you have fresh garlic most of the year. When they eventually start to sprout you can then blitz and freeze them making sure you don’t waste any.
Make sure to get garlic bulbs specifically for planting. Supermarket garlic quite often has been sprayed with a growth inhibitor to stop it sprouting. I use Kings Seeds but you can also plant garlic that you have harvested that year.
Planting
I always plant my garlic in the autumn, usually mid October. Garlic needs a cold spell for the growing bulb to split into cloves. Choose a sunny spot with well draining soil, garlic does not want to sit in puddles! Make sure to enrich the ground with some homemade compost, well rotted manure or a good quality bagged compost, I use RocketGro.
Split your bulb into individual cloves, keeping the biggest and set aside the smaller cloves (don’t worry we’ll come back to those soon). I plant my garlic 2″ deep, 6″ apart and around 1ft between rows. Leaving extra space between rows means you can plant salad leaves there in the spring. Garlic is a great companion to salad leaves as it keeps slugs at bay.
Now those smaller cloves don’t need prime position as the reality is small cloves are going to give you small bulbs so I plant my smaller cloves in rows where I’ll sow my carrots next spring. Plant them closer together, around 3-4″ apart leaving space between rows for your carrots.
Growing On
Over autumn and winter there isn’t much to do. Keep the area free of weeds and pop down every week or so to check if they’ve popped through (it’s so exciting seeing those shoots appearing). Come spring I like to give them a sprinkling of sulphate of potash to help encourage fatter bulbs and then towards the end of spring I give them a good mulch to prepare them for summer.
Harvesting
Keep them watered during hot dry spells, watering deep rather than a quick shower and keep them weed free. Harvest garlic scapes as you see them and then the bulbs will be ready to harvest around June/July. Stop watering a couple weeks prior to lifting and cut back any leaves showing signs of rust.
Once you’ve harvested your gorgeous bulbs its time to prep them for storage. Once lifted lightly brush off any dirt and trim roots back to about an inch. Then you want to hand them somewhere dry and warm to cure. I slot mine into the greenhouse bench which gives them plenty of air circulation too. after a few weeks you can give them a better clean up. Brush off any loose papery skin and dirt and trim the roots back as close to the bulb as you can without damaging the bulb. Then its back to where you had them sat curing to continue the process for a few more weeks.
Once your happy they are fully dry and before cold, damp weather sets in you want to move them somewhere cool and dry. I store mine in mushroom crates in the garage which works really well.
And that’s it, your easy guide to growing your own garlic. And after your first year of growing garlic you then decide to grow from your own harvested bulbs then you will actually be completely self sufficient in garlic! Isn’t that wonderful? Happy Garlicky Growing
Steph’s Allotment 