Get Growing: Get that easy-to-grow garlic in the ground now

It’s time to plant garlic. Well actually it was time to plant the garlic in October but garlic isn’t picky at all. In fact, it’s one of the easiest plants to grow, is incredibly forgiving and is hard to mess up. 

If you are only going to grow one thing, I would suggest garlic. It doesn’t take up much space either. All you need is a baseball size piece of ground in which to plant the garlic clove. You take a single clove off the head of garlic, plant it about an inch in the ground with the pointy side up, cover it with dirt and you’re done. Water it when it’s warm and watch it grow.

Garlic loves the cold weather. You normally plant it in the fall and it may grow an inch or two before winter (or it might not). When spring rolls around, it really starts growing and by the end of June or early July your garlic is done. However, you can plant it in the winter or the very early spring if the ground isn’t frozen. 

Right now the hard part is going to be acquiring garlic. As far as I know there isn’t a local source that still has garlic available but I’d encourage you to call around to some farms or The Flower Bin Garden Center & Nursery to see if they have any. The normal time to be buying garlic for planting (or seed garlic) is the end of summer, so to be inquiring about garlic in the winter is certainly odd. The farmers’ market is normally a really good place to buy your garlic, but that’s over now so that’s not an option. WeeBee Farms is one of the main garlic stands at the farmers’ market that sells garlic.

If you’re not able to find garlic, just keep this in mind for next year and when you see a whole bunch of garlic for sale at the farmers’ market at the end of summer, you can buy some to plant.  

One of the neat things about garlic is you plant a single clove and you get a whole head of garlic. You can then store it in a breathable bag in the fridge and it’ll last about a year. You can slowly accumulate a large stock of garlic, so you really only need to buy seed garlic once, unless you eat your whole bounty that is.

Once you’ve acquired garlic and you’re ready to plant it, you can use a drill auger to easily drill a small hole in the ground. Then drop the garlic in with the pointy end up, cover and water every now and then when it’s warm outside. At this point in the year, you likely won’t see any growth until April or May, but you still want to get the garlic in the ground when it’s cold outside. If you wait until the spring to plant, you’ll want to do so in February or March, as soon as the ground thaws.

For more detailed instructions on planting garlic, check out Plant that Garlic on my blog.

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