Growing Garlic

Because I think I’m a pretty good garlic grower, and because I get questions about growing garlic, I’m going to write this post and update it with photos and more info throughout the growing season. The new info will be in a new blog post but will be copied and pasted into this post and I will keep a link to it in the sidebar.

This is about half of what I grew this past season. I’ve given lots of garlic to friends and Chad. I’ve made enough honey fermented garlic to hopefully make it through the winter. We each eat two cloves per day. We’re currently finishing off the last jar of the fermented garlic I made in 2023.

My favorite garlic to grow here is German Extra Hardy garlic, which is a hard neck variety. There were other varieties I grew in Texas. Advice: If you’re planting garlic for the first time, do a bit of research as to whether hard neck or soft neck is right for your area. Once you decide which type to buy, look at the various “flavor profiles” that you think you may like. Beware that different sites will give different info as to which is “right” for your area/zone. There’s sweet garlic, spicy garlic, mild garlic, VERY garlicky garlic. Order a few different varieties and decide what you like. The German Extra Hardy grows amazingly well here in southwest Missouri in our raised beds, it grows huge bulbs. It has a strong garlic flavor. The cloves are large and easy to peel. I ordered the German Extra Hardy, Music and several others to plant when we first moved here. I planted them in rows – one type per row, in one 4′ x 8′ raised bed. We tested them that first year and decided on the German Extra Hardy based on production, size, taste and how well it stored.

Know Your Planting Zone: It isn’t exact but, based on your climate, you will probably be better growing EITHER soft or hard neck.

I’m technically in Zone 7a, according to the USDA Hardiness Chart. BUT, know your own little area. There are microclimates and, while I’m not a meteorologist or a climate expert, I feel certain that if you live at the top of a mountain in your zip code or if you live in a deep valley in your zip code, you low temp and even your average low temp may be different from someone who lives in the middle of town with lots of concrete and asphalt. When we lived in Texas, we were 17 miles out of town in wide, open spaces with cattle ranches all around. We had the same zip code as people living in the city and our lows were often 10 degrees colder than friends in town who had the same Ambient Weather Station that we had. It’s like here – according to the USDA, I’m in Zone 7a, which lists average lows to be 0 to 5 degrees. We’re in a pretty deep valley and our lows are almost always at least 5 degrees colder in the winter than the weatherman says they are for this area. It’s Joplin weather we listen to and they’re about 10 miles south of us and it’s a city of concrete and asphalt. When deciding what variety of anything to plant, if the low temp is a determining factor, I go with Zone 6a and that average low is -10 to -5. Again, that’s an average. In the four years we’ve been here, two of those winters, we had lows three nights in a row that got down to -20. I don’t even know what our “average” low would be . . as in – take 90 winter night lows and average them. What matters to me is how low can this plant survive. So, if our our “average low” is -3 degrees, I’m still going to look for plants, especially fruit trees, that can survive -20 because one night of -20 degrees can kill plants that are safe to -3. These kind of predictions/projections are never exactly right for every location in every zip code in every year so . . know your own little microclimate and just do the best you can, knowing that some winters, you may lose it all due to extreme cold.

Both winters here when it got down into the -20’s, even though for several days, the highs did not get above zero, my garlic crop was fine.

Bed Prep: My garlic here is planted in raised beds. In Texas it was planted directly in the ground. It works just fine either way. Here I have evil squirrels who gather walnuts and plant them in every square inch of freshly tilled soil I have. Because I get my beds ready early, I will rake them deeply before planting my garlic and remove all the walnuts. I do go out almost every day and look to see if I can see where walnuts have been planted and I remove them then.

NOTE: Check the pH of your soil now and add any amendments that may be needed. Garlic grows best in a pH of 6 to 7.

NOTE: I add blood meal to the garlic in early spring – pretty much as soon as the hyacinths bloom is when I add blood meal to the garlic. In some garden centers, garden supplies may be on sale this time of year (late summer/early fall), though I rarely find bone or blood meal.

I will plant my garlic the first week in October. I may delay it a bit, or even plant it early if there’s a lot of rain in the forecast. I don’t want to plant it just before we have five or 6 days of enough rain to keep the ground soaking wet.

Once I plant the garlic, I will cover it with about 6″ of straw, then I will tack chicken wire down over the raised bed. The chicken wire keeps the squirrels from going in and digging to plant their walnuts and messing up my garlic.

Then, I just leave it alone. Usually it doesn’t get dry enough that I need to water it or mess with it at all until almost April or May.

Basically, for our zone and those with similar climates, here’s what you need to be doing now:

1. Choose your bed location and get it ready. Remove grass/weeds, till it up often between now and then. Add organic matter. To my garlic beds, I will continue adding veggie scraps and several buckets of compost from the bin.
2. Get your garlic ordered. If you cannot get garlic ordered and have it arrive in time to plant, buy some organic garlic from a grocery store and plant that. No guarantees, it may be small but it’s probably a good way to get started if you’re really wanting to try growing garlic.
3. If you don’t have enough leaves to cover the freshly planted garlic, you may want to buy some good quality straw. If you get it before you need it, put it somewhere to keep it dry. It’s much easier to spread it when it’s dry and not wet or damp.

I will update this post as I do the next steps.