Any garlic growing tips?

buddy110 · Sun Sep 16, 2012 3:59 am

I just prepared a small bed which I intend to use for garlic, onions some tomatoes and hot peppers (ghost peppers) I mixed in a lot of home made compost so the soil is very loose, with lots of organic matter. I mixed in all in with a mantis

I understand that garlic must be planted in the fall. I live in the northeast, NY specifically. Does anyone have any advice for me?

Many thanks

jal_ut · Sun Sep 16, 2012 5:51 am

Sounds like you have the plot ready. You can plant now. Plant the largest cloves for the large bulbs. Small cloves will make small bulbs or just rounds. Plant them 5 to 6 inches apart and about 3 inches deep. Garlic does respond well to nitrogen, so fertilize again in the spring. Good luck.

applestar · Sun Sep 16, 2012 6:02 am

Garlic is day length sensitive (Long Day, Daylength neutral, Short Day-I.e. same length as night) so be sure to get the correct variety for your region. In NY, you would want the long day varieties which form bulbs when the days get significantly longer in the summer.

In regions where the ground freezes, garlic should be planted around the same time as spring bulbs, or starting around first frost but about a month before the hard freeze. You want to give the garlic chance to establish, grow roots and maybe grow a bit of a new winter hardy shoot, but not give them more time to grow tender more mature shoots that would be winter killed and set back the plants.

Mulch the bed to alleviate soil heaving from frost/freeze which will break the growing roots, and heavily mulch, covering the baby shoots just before hard freeze.

I'll let someone else advise about when to plant in warmer regions, understanding WAS that you would plant them somewhat earlier, along with other fall crops, because there is no need to worry about the tops getting winter killed, but I have since heard that far south -- like Texas -- gardener's plant them in January.

buddy110 · Sun Sep 16, 2012 6:09 am

I plan to buy some cloves from a local gardener for my plantings.

Thanks folks!

jal_ut · Sun Sep 16, 2012 7:09 am

A good place for growing tips may be your extension service. [url=https://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/HG_2004-02.pdf]Here is a paper I found on the USU extension.[/url] This may be good info for you too, however in different areas of the country growing techniques vary some depending on the climate. Every garden variety has generalities, but planting times and culture may vary with the climate and location. This USU extension (Utah State University) has a whole list of garden varieties if you are interested in exploring it.

rainbowgardener · Sun Sep 16, 2012 11:13 pm

Yeah, you didn't say where you are located. Makes a difference for when to plant your garlic. I plant mine in Oct. I've only grown it for two years now and have just bought grocery store garlic and planted the cloves. Very easy care.

This year for the first time, I will be using my home grown garlic for seed cloves, because I had so much of it.

gumbo2176 · Mon Sep 17, 2012 12:25 am

rainbowgardener wrote:Yeah, you didn't say where you are located. Makes a difference for when to plant your garlic. I plant mine in Oct. I've only grown it for two years now and have just bought grocery store garlic and planted the cloves. Very easy care.

This year for the first time, I will be using my home grown garlic for seed cloves, because I had so much of it.

My luck with grocery store garlic was just the opposite. Where you obviously had an abundance of nice heads that allows you to use the leftovers for seed garlic, mine grew very small heads with individual cloves that were very thin, small, but very pungent.

I tried using store bought garlic a couple years ago and had the above results. Last year I bought some and had some sent to me by one of our generous members. Unfortunately that garlic seed rotted in the bed after it came up and we had tons of rainfall. It was a 1 ft. deep raised bed too, and it still went bad. This year I will use the same bed but keep an eye on soil moisture. If it looks to be getting too wet for too long I"ll drop a tarp over the bed to keep it a bit dryer as see how that works out for me.

Gary350 · Mon Sep 17, 2012 2:34 am

I have 3 types of garlic that I have planted. I plant grocery store garlic, I plant garlic that was given to me by an orential lady friend, and garlic I bought at the farmer supply store. I have no idea the names of these garlics. They all grow well in full sun and loose sandy compost soil. The grocery store garlic grows the largest. The garlic I got from the oriential lady is very small with a slight purple look to it on the outside, I think it is just small garlic. Plant now and harvest next summer about July after the tops die. Some of my tops go to seed then I have about 50 tiny garlic sets that I can plant. I had a raised bed 36"x96" with 6 rows of garlic, rows 6" apart, plants 6" apart. I let the grass take over and it still did pretty good.

Ohio Tiller · Mon Sep 17, 2012 2:59 am

Here is where I get mine they are a advertiser here on the site and I have had good luck with them. They are getting ready to ship garlic next week.

https://www.territorialseed.com/category/26

jal_ut · Mon Sep 17, 2012 4:13 am

My son is quite an experimenter. He planted something like 100 varieties he got from all over from mostly internet contacts. Over a three year period he selected the ones that got the biggest to plant next year. In this way he was hoping to get some that would excell in our environment. I laughed when someone at market asked him what variety it was, he said its "Lofthouse" garlic.

I too have garlic from several sources and do a similar thing. Always selecting the largest to save for planting next year. I gave up on softnecks and plant only hardneck. I have some Musik that I have kept separate, but don't have a clue what the other stuff is called. I guess its "Lofthouse" garlic too.

I have grown some elephant garlic for years, but it is easy to tell from the other garlic. I think I am going to grow a bit of this around the foundation, just for the flowers, but it is not a favorite for eating or cooking.

rainbowgardener · Mon Sep 17, 2012 4:16 am

yeah my grocery store garlic in a very enriched bed grew huge, the heads were onion sized and the cloves big and fat. Some of the same garlic planted in the back with less sun and less enriched soil didn't get nearly as big, though adequate. I've been using the smaller stuff first and saving the big ones for seed.