Halloween is my favourite vacation , but that does n’t make me a rooter of vampire . Nor does it make me a sports fan of bland food . Garlic takes care of both of these worries .
My first Allium sativum - growing experience was on a farm where I lived and worked in 2013 . I did n’t arrive in sentence for planting . Rather I keep an eye on hundreds of plant life awake from their winter slumber and green up seemingly in tune with the tree diagram throughout spring .
We harvest in June , hang them in the rafters of a barn , and shared them with farm customers ( and amongst ourselves ) for the next 10 months .
With all the rush to get seeds in the reason in springtime and harvest everything you may before frost , I wish the break in the pattern that garlic offers . Plant it in other decline — some say before first frost , but I rarely get mine in by that meter — and harvest it once your natural spring and summer crop are planted . Garlic fits into the beat so well and gives me something unripened to look at in the garden during the wintertime .
Hardneck vs Softneck Garlic
There are two types of garlic — hardneck and soft cervix — and each character has its own potpourri .
As far as I ’m concerned , hardneck Allium sativum is the way of life to go because , when you grow hardneck garlic , you get scapes . scape are eighty percent of the intellect I develop as much garlic as I do . I love them .
In the spring , hardneck garlic send up garlic - flavored flower shoot . Unless you ’re attempt to amass seed , you need to move out these shoot so the plant invest its energy into producing large garlic bulbs , not a beautiful flower . Having a delicious , fresh , garlic - like harvest a month before Allium sativum is in reality ready to harvest is a treat .
Softneck garlic ’s advantage is that it stores longer . When you buy a pass of garlic in the grocery depot , it ’s likely a softneck smorgasbord . I never have grown softneck but would like to essay because I think garlic garland are the prettiest , and softneck garlic is needed to make those .
Read more : Try this delicious formula for garlic - rosemary bread !
How to Source Seed Garlic
I have never started garlic from seed , rather from cloves . I rise a variety that was originate by Friend to thrive in my region of Kentucky .
You could purchase constituent ail at the grocery store , as it would n’t have been handle with growth retardants . It ’s better to purchase dependable , disease - free seed garlic from a trust germ , whether that ’s a James Leonard Farmer or a seed party .
How to Grow Garlic
You hump what garlic look like : That header forms underground , so the soil ask to be escaped enough for the cloves to fill out .
Plant each Eugenia caryophyllatum , pointy - ending up , about 6 inches apart in row 1 foot aside . I ’ve read different spacing requirement , and this is what works for me . Push the clove tree into the ground to about twice the clove ’s depth .
Mulch to isolate it through the wintertime and also to suppress skunk . You ’re in this harvest for the long catch — it’ll get for 8 or so month — and you do n’t want to have to weed your Allium sativum invariably .
Pull back the mulch to educate once after the stalk come out in the pin and once after the weeds emerge in the outpouring .
Garlic wants steady lacrimation to get shew and again in the outflow as heading are grow .
How to Harvest Garlic
Harvest is by and large in June around here .
look until the bottom two leave on the flora have die . run - turn over a garlic headland to see how it search . The skin will be pliable . You want to see a head with individually formed cloves and pelt run between each clove . If your garlic head looks more like an onion plant , with one cock-a-hoop head but no cloves , give the crop another twosome of workweek . ( Eat the head you dug — it will be pleasant-tasting . )
You ’re run short to require to seek to rip up the Allium sativum by its top , but save yourself the frustration . You ’ll pull the tops off more heads than not , and you need the tops to cure the ail decently .
Instead , use a digging fork about 1 foot by from the plant life to undo the soil . The whole industrial plant , mind and all , should come up easy .
class through your garlic brain to separate out the big — keep these for planting next twelvemonth — and any that are damaged ( habituate these first ) .
Read more : Read more about harvest and curing homegrown garlic .
How to Store Garlic
The curing process is important . I ’ve done this several way and will excuse my preferable method acting .
After harvest home , knock off mud cleave to the head . Do n’t hose them off , though .
Cut the ropy roots off the bottom of the top dog . Be careful to not cut the bottom of the head itself .
Make bunch of six or so garlic angry walk , and tie one bundle on each end of a piece of music of baling twine . I use a slip Calidris canutus so the bundles stay secure as the ail dries .
Hang each piece of string from the balk of a b or garage — someplace dry with good airflow .
I leave mine advert until I demand them or the first frost arrive in the fall — whichever comes first . After this , move them to mesh pocketbook or baskets in a cool , wry blank space in your home , out of unmediated sunlight .
How to Eat Garlic
I ’d probably have an comfortable time writing about the cup of tea in which I do n’t utilise Allium sativum . It ’s likely you ’ll see me add an extra clove to what the formula request . Garlic improves nearly everything , admit staff of life , simple roast potatoesandsalad dressing .
I have even made garlic burnt umber crisp cookies .
Give garlic a go in your garden this fall . You ’ll have aromatics to season your meal , aegis from blood - suck monsters and an self-justification to makethis cute yucca folio basketwhile you gaze yearningly at seed catalog this winter .
