Six Figs Farm LLC

It’s getting toward time to plant garlic! That’s November for us here in Georgia. If you garden, and you’re not growing it already, garlic is a fantastic addition to the home garden. It takes up very little space, and doesn’t require much work after the initial planting. We’ve planted garlic for five years, so we are not experts, however, we have learned a lot (mostly the hard way!) that can possibly make your foray into garlic planting a bit easier. So much gardening advice is geared toward northern gardeners, and it can be hard to find info for growing in our hot, humid, constantly fluctuating weather. So, I thought I’d put together what I’ve learned about garlic growing here for you.

Tip 1: Order your seed garlic now. Seed garlic sells out. Check and make sure, but the company will probably send your garlic at the appropriate time. If you’re here in Georgia, and new to garlic, you’ll want to plant softneck garlic. This garlic doesn’t have scapes, but handles temperature fluctuations better than hardneck. Each bulb will have different amounts of cloves/seeds, so it’s a bit of a guessing game as to how much to buy. Since they take up so little space, and any extra is edible, I try to err on the side of too much rather than too little. Some of the varieties we’ve loved have been: Early Red Italian, Inchelium Red, and S&H Silver.

Tip 2: Don’t use garlic from the grocery store. We have had the best results buying seeds from a reputable company. Garlic seed is just the individual cloves from the bulb of garlic. You can use garlic from the store, but that specific type of garlic might or might not be good for your area, and our results with that weren’t fantastic.

Tip 3: Prep your beds ahead of time. As far as how much space, garlic doesn’t need much. You’re literally giving it enough room to be a bulb of garlic in the ground, so spacing about 4 inches apart. Give yourself a walkway if you have more than one row. Now, get rid of the weeds- we do this by bringing our chickens in, then putting plastic down after. You can do it however it works for you. Scratch up, hoe, till, or otherwise break up the soil, and add in compost.

Tip 4: Keep in mind that while garlic doesn’t take up a ton of space, it will be there through the springtime planting, so make sure to put it in an area that you don’t plan to use until your fall garden next year.

Tip 5: When you’re ready to plant your garlic, take all the cloves apart. Save the biggest prettiest cloves to plant, and set aside the tiny or bruised ones. Leave the papery skin on- they’ll happily grow with it on, you just want lots of beautiful garlic cloves.

Tip 6: We plant garlic in early to mid November. It wants as much freeze time as it can get, and not much time to do anything before. Two weeks before it gets really cold is about right, but I’m told the ground can be frozen, and as long as you can get the garlic in the ground, it won’t care. Give it some compost on top and mulch heavily. The garlic is going to be in the ground for a long time, and you don’t want to have it taken over by weeds. We put drip tape down under a 4-6 inch layer of mulch. You don’t have to go to that extreme, but if it hasn’t rained for a while, pull aside the mulch in a small area to see if the soil is dry under there. If you need to water, make sure it’s enough to get to the plants. Just watering the top layer of mulch isn’t going to help your garlic.

Tip 7: Do nothing over the winter. You should see some green shoots, but that’s about it. In the spring, throw down some fertilizer- we use kelp and fish emulsion through the drip tape, but you can use what you like. Leave it alone then. Water as needed. In early June, start watching it. The stalks will turn brown on the side, and fall over when they’re ready to harvest. If you aren’t sure, brush the dirt away from one of the bulbs. If it’s a biggish bulb, and you can’t help yourself, pull it carefully. Wait on the rest a while longer. It’s hard to leave garlic too long, and really easy to pull it too early. Just wait.

Tip 8: Once you’ve harvested your garlic, don’t wash it! It’ll look so dirty, but resist the temptation! Just brush off the dirt. Curing comes next. Curing intensifies the flavors. All you really have to do is hang it somewhere that it won’t get direct sunlight, and the humidity isn’t too high. You can use it at any point, just wash before use. For garlic you’re storing, wait until the stem feels empty and dry, then you can brush away the outer covering (which has the dirt on it) and trim the ends. You can also braid softneck garlic and hang it in your kitchen- so pretty!

This little blog post is far from expert advice or directions. Here are some links if you want to get all the info to plant your own garlic. If you don’t want to go to all this trouble, we’ll have garlic available next early summer.

UGA extension is always our source for the best info for our local area.

Filaree Garlic Farm is where we have bought our seed garlic for the last couple of years. They have a ton of good info on their site. You can even order a variety pack suited to your specific area. They don’t really specify whether garlic is hardneck or softneck, but you can google the variety and go from there, or trust their recommendations.