Planting Next Year's Garlic
Everyone at the farm is busy completing our long list of autumn tasks. This week’s milder weather provided a little more time to plant more bulbs, including next year’s crop of garlic. If you have garlic to plant, try to get it into the ground before the end of the month.
Although garlic can be planted in the spring as soon as the ground can be worked, fall planting is recommended for most gardeners. This allows extra time for the bulbs to develop and become more flavorful for the summer harvest. We planted a lot of garlic from Keene Organics, a family-owned farm in Wisconsin that sells certified organic and naturally grown gourmet bulbs for both eating and planting. Garlic is great for cooking and very good for your health. It is known to lower blood pressure and cholesterol and carries antioxidant properties. Knowing that I also grow the garlic myself makes it even more special.
Enjoy these photos.
-
- This year, we received more than 35 different varieties of garlic. When selecting garlic for planting, look for the largest most robust bulbs. Most of the netted packs contain about three or four bulbs each. And each bulb contains at least four to six cloves – some even more.
-
- This year, I decided to plant the garlic in the bed next to the main greenhouse. It is the same bed we used for this year’s dahlias. Next spring, the garlic will be harvested just in time to replant the dahlia bulbs. Garlic likes loose, loamy and nutrient-filled soil with plenty of organic matter, compost, manure, and fertilizer.
-
- Ryan spreads a good coating of fertilizer on the bed. The best garlic plant fertilizer will be high in nitrogen.
-
- Next, Gavin uses Johnny’s Selected Seeds nine-tine, 20-inch wide broadfork to mix in the fertilizer and break up the soil, which had hardened slightly after a couple very cold nights. These deep-tillage tools, designed long ago in Europe and redeveloped by Eliot Coleman, make turning the soil almost effortless because it uses body weight to insert and maneuver the tool.
-
- Phurba uses twine to make rows for the garlic. Doing this creates straight, pretty lines, but it is also important to give the cloves enough room to grow and develop. The rows should be planted a foot apart.
-
- Among the many varieties we are planting – Kettle River garlic produces very large bulbs, sometimes up to four inches in diameter. Kettle River also has plump cloves with flakey, white outer wrappers. This variety is rich in flavor, gives off medium heat, and provides a smooth and subtle finish.
-
- Estonian Red has five or six large cloves in each bulb. It is a hardneck purple stripe variety, with dark red blush streaks to its skin. Its flavor is mild, with only a hint of heat even when eaten raw.
-
- Pehoski Purple-Marbled Purple Stripe is a hardneck that’s hot when eaten raw and more mild and earthy in taste after it is cooked. This is an heirloom variety grown in the Polish community in Wisconsin. It’s an all-purpose garlic for baking and sautéing.
-
- Asian Tempest-Asiatic is very hot when eaten raw and sweet when baked. It tastes rich, garlicky, strong, and robust with easy to peel jumbo cloves.
-
- Elephant Garlic is not a true garlic, but actually, a leek that resembles garlic in growing and in appearance. It has a very mild flavor and is twice the size of normal garlic varieties.
-
- The Romanian Red Porcelain garlic is best for medicinal purposes because it is high in allicin. It is known to be very hot with a tanginess that tends to linger.
-
- Transylvanian garlic is the famed artichoke garlic of the Dracula legends. It is an early season flavorful garlic that’s worth trying.
-
- Georgian Fire’s powerful, full flavor is complemented with spice that provides a satisfying balance. Plump cloves are covered in gleaming tan skins with purple streaks, and the whole bulb is wrapped in white, tissuey covers.
-
- Red Toch is beautiful garlic with stripes of red and pink. The Red Toch is also known as “Tochliavri” in the small Republic of Georgia village from which it hails. This variety is richly flavored and mildly pungent.
-
- The Chesnok Red-Purple Stripe garlic is an heirloom variety. It is loved for its rich flavor as an all-purpose cooking garlic. It’s also well known as a superb baking garlic.
-
- Ryan creates label markers listing each garlic variety.
-
- And then he prepares the garlic for planting. Ryan cracks each bulb and separates all the cloves. He does this carefully, so as not to damage any of them. For the best results, plant the largest cloves from each bulb and save the smaller ones for eating.
-
- These garlic cloves are in great condition for planting.
-
- The next step is to prepare a solution to treat the garlic cloves before putting them into the ground. Ryan starts with a scoop of baking soda dropped into a bucket with a removable strainer.
-
- Ryan then pours fish emulsion into the same container. This is an organic garden fertilizer that’s made from whole fish or parts of fish. It’s easy to find at garden centers or wherever gardening supplies and fertilizers are sold.
-
- The baking soda and fish emulsion are mixed together with tap water.
-
- Ryan brings the garlic and the solution mix outside to the garden bed, making sure each group of cloves remains labeled for accurate identification.
-
- He submerges the cloves in the solution and keeps them submerged until they have absorbed enough of the mix. Soaking the garlic cloves in fish emulsion gives them a fertilizer boost and rids them of possible diseases, which could have been carried by the garlic.
-
- Ryan lifts the strainer to remove all the liquid. The cloves are left to drain for a few minutes – this process takes a bit of time but ensures all the liquid is removed.
-
- Next, he sprays the garlic with isopropyl or rubbing alcohol. This helps to sterilize the cloves. If you don’t have alcohol, you can also use hydrogen peroxide or vodka.
-
- Gavin starts placing the garlic cloves about six inches from each other under each twine row.
-
- Using a dibber, Phurba follows behind planting each clove in an assembly line process. This is a T-dibber. The T-grip allows the planter to apply enough pressure to create a consistent depth for each hole. Be sure to plant the tip of the clove faced up, and the root side faced down.
-
- Phurba gets through each row very quickly. The majority of garlic in the US is planted from mid-October through November, several weeks before the ground fully freezes. Once the garlic clove is in the hole, simply backfill the hole.
-
- The labels are inserted at the beginning of each group of cloves.
-
- All the rows are now planted and the entire bed is full. A handsome row of boxwood lines the front of the garden bed.
-
- After all the garlic is planted, the area is raked smooth – it looks great. The garlic crop will tolerate some shade but prefers full sun. This garlic will be ready to harvest mid-July to August. I can’t wait.
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
