Time to Plant Garlic: Tips & Tricks
Featured photograph by Marie Viljoen, from Gardening 101: Garlic.
Fall is the season for pumpkins, leaf peeping, and enjoying the last bit of warm sunshine before winter kicks in. And if you love garlic, it’s also the perfect time to plant it for a summer harvest.
Photograph by Marie Viljoen.
A good place to source garlic bulbs to plant: the farmer’s market.
1. Don’t plant grocery store garlic.
Choose large, healthy garlic bulbs to plant. While you can buy them from your farmers’ market, they are best purchased from a good quality seed company.
2. Grow at least two varieties of garlic.
Photograph by Marie Viljoen.
Edible scapes show up on hardneck garlic in the spring.
Different varieties taste different and store for different lengths of time. Hardneck garlic puts out scapes in the spring.
Photograph by George Billard for Gardenista, from Garden Visit: A Cook’s Garden in Upstate New York.
3. Stick to the edges.
Wild garlic (forefront) transplanted into a bed.
Plant along the edges of your bed. Second, garlic can repel small critters, like rabbits, from nibbling your tender lettuce and carrot tops.
Photograph by Marie Viljoen.
Garlic cloves should be planted just a few inches deep.
4. Make sure the soil is healthy.