How To Plant and Grow Garlic

Garlic is a member of the family Allium. It is an ancient bulbous vegetable. Garlic can grow easily and needs very little space in the yard. garlic can grow from individual cloves cut off from a whole plant. Each clove multiplies in the ground, forming a new bulb composed of 5-10 cloves. Garlic tastes in many recipes well roasted or used as a flavoring.

Read on to find out how to plant garlic in containers or garden beds. For other plantings, you can tuck it in or save a whole bed just for that essential crop.

Varieties Of Garlic to Grow

There are three different types of garlic. Various species are better suited to various temperate areas and forms of soil.

Softneck garlic

Softneck varieties designed for warmer climates would be easier to cultivate indoors since you don’t have to cool them to produce bulbs. This list of what kind of garlic you’ll find in most supermarkets. It has a very mild flavor. Does grow well in mild winters. It is a braided type, but it lacks a hard stem. Has a strong taste, several cloves of various sizes.

Hardneck garlic

Hardneck garlic comes in dozens of varieties of bulbs and is known to be the original or native garlic. It can not be braided in the cold atmosphere and has a mild flavor. Due to the absence of so many layers on the garlic bulbs, hard neck garlic does not store as long as a soft neck. A hard neck garlic head contains fewer cloves but they are lots of another size.

Elephant garlic

It looks like a giant garlic head and belongs to the same genus, Allium, too. It’s not a true garlic, though, but rather is similar to the leek.

How to Plant Garlic

Garlic plants prefer to grow in full sun. The plant grows in a wide range of weather. If you live in the area with humidity and lots of rainfall then it grows less well. It is a heavy feeder that ensures that it takes a lot of organic material and compost to keep it growing happily.

With competition for space or resources, it often doesn’t develop well. Be careful to grow garlic in a weed-free environment and in a proper drainage system, so that the bulbs don’t rot.

Get the fresh garlic and break the head from the cloves: Find some organic garlic. Farmers’ markets and garlic festivals are a perfect way to spring up good quality garlic bulbs for seed use. To split the bulb into cloves and keep the clove on the paper.
Dig small holes: Dig small holes in a straight line about twice the depth of the clove. The bigger the cloves will expand the more space between the holes. If you have a smaller garden bed, spread the seedlings in each row so they’re not next to each other.
Place each one clove: Place one clove carefully in one hole, with the pointy part up. Place them in an upright position, about three to five inches apart, in the soil about a half-inch to an inch deep.

For better growth conditions, you should space the cloves approx 8 inches away from each other. We suggest that you do not fill the holes with soil before all the cloves are put in their holes and make sure that you have one in each hole and that they are positioned in the proper spot.

Cover the cloves with soil: If the cloves are checked, fill the holes with loose soil, and cover the bed with leaves. You can also use a small greenhouse to cover the area. Pat the soil to firm it gently on top of the garlic cloves.
Fertilization of the cloves: At the time of planting, the cultivated garlic still needs a complete fertilizer.

Caring for Garlic Plants

If you’ve ever grown some plants, you’ll probably know how to care for garlic plants, as the simple stuff that garlic requires to grow is sunlight and water. While garlic isn’t as demanding and high-maintenance as other plants maybe, you’ll need a little extra care in the summer if you’re planning satisfying, healthy crops and keeping an eye on pests.

1. Give water to plants when need

Newly planted garlic has to be kept moist to further grow the roots. Nevertheless, do not over giving the water otherwise it does not grow well or can be rot if sodden in a cold months’ time.

2. Remove weeds

Shallow root and low growing weeds may not be a problem, but those with a deep root system or large leaves competing for sunlight can affect the well-being and growth of the garlic crop. Remove the weeds as soon as you see them, to increase your garlic plant’s amount of sunlight and minerals.

3. Mulching

In winter, mulch provides cover from cold and drying winds. Summertime, applying a mulch layer helps preserve moisture, maintains soil temperatures high, and keeps the weeds down.

4. Fertilize a garlic plant

You should start with strong for giving your baby garlic plant, pick a potting soil that has some compost or other natural fertilizer inside it. Fertilize in spring just after the growth begins, then every 30 days before the end of May.

Using a 5-5-5 or 10-10-10 NPK-ratio all-purpose fertilizer. This is the ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus to potassium, the key macronutrients required for growing plants.

5. Keep checking of pests

Mice, insects, and other pests can come among the plants for eating the garlic or can make a nest. Look out for the pests like Aphids that seem to like garlic leaves, and the buds of the flowers. Simply rub your fingertips over them and crush them, or apply a pesticide, they’re easy to get rid of. Many people prefer to grow garlic underneath roses so that they can deter aphids; the aphids are attracted away to benefit the roses.

Storing Garlic Fresh

1.Keep it cool

Keep garlic in a cold, dry position in your home to keep it from going bad. Temperature is the most important aspect of preserving garlic. And the ideal temperature for garlic storage is one which is cool, but not freezing, and certainly not hot. The optimum temperature is between 60-65 F.

2. Keep it dry

Moisture is another adversary of new garlic. A humid environment causes the garlic to rot. And based on the climate you’re living in, you can not have much influence over that, particularly in the summer. Yet there are a few things to do.

You make sure your entire garlic bulbs are not packed in some kind of plastic bag. This will not only prevent air passage but will also concentrate the natural moisture in the garlic, thus accelerating spoilage.

3. Keep it Ventilated

The garlic bulbs should be stored in a well-ventilated location for long term storage, it would give the garlic to breathe and increase their shelf life. Garlic bulbs may be placed in a paper bag or can wire basket, a small bowl with holes for ventilation, or even a paper bag.