Last week my son planted 40 cloves of garlic. I planted another 60 cloves today - finally. The wind was very chilly and not much is left in my garden plot. After planting I pulled a blanket of salt hay over the cloves.
Yesterday I had looked up how much garlic I planted last year - 100 cloves. This seemed like a perfect amount, so I planted the same number of cloves again this year. This great thing is that this year what I planted is all garlic that I grew myself. So it was FREE!
Last year I bought 4 nice varieties if garlic from Territorial and Johnny's paying about $40 as I remember. I was hoping I was right in my thinking that this was a one time investment and that after this I could now grow my own garlic in successive years. So far so good. 100 cloves is about 12-15 heads of garlic and was about 10% of last year's crop.
14 comments:
I just planted my first garlic ever this year. How much space did you need for 100 cloves of garlic? And how do you keep your garlic all year?(Love your Wyeth quote by the way!)
Hi Kathy, can you offer any tips for saving cloves between harvest and planting?
I leave about 5 inches on each side of a clove. So 10 cloves is a 50 inch row, 10 rows will take a 50 inch width. So that's about a 5 ft by 5 ft of space. (25 sq ft)
I planted n two locations. I filled up a bed that is about 3 by 4 feet. Plus I used about 3 ft by 3 ft square at the end of another bed. Sounds about like my calculation.
To store garlic, I leave it in a open wire basket in the basement. I have never had this much before, so I don't know how long it will last. I'm guessing it will last at least until Jan or Feb. I remember Patrick at Bifurcated Carrots saying some of his last until April. I think I will have eaten all of mine before then. We'll see...
The cloves easily lasted from the harvest in July/August until planting in October. Just make sure they are not too hot and have plenty of airflow around them.
GENius. Thank you SO much for this reminder! I was planning on it, then left for field work, got a cold, now have a freaky eye-issue, and must vote and write 1667 words a day, so forgot.
So, voting today and buying and planting garlic. CHECK.
Great save! Thanks!! =)
We've had garlic a few years running now - I'm still working on finishing up the garlic harvested in July of 09! It lasts so much longer than the store bought stuff. This years harvest was about 150 heads (some small). The largest heads are saved for replanting, and I bought a few new varieties. We just started our new garden at the house and planted 246 cloves. We needed a 8x3' bed and 2.5x4' bed to sow it all. All tucked in with a deep layer of salt marsh hay. I can't wait for the next harvest, but I have so much garlic to get through before then! I store mine in the cool-ish mud room, and in a braid hung on the wall of the kitchen. We put it in everything. :)
I just sowed about 220 heads. I think I left more space than it needed -- I put them 6" apart in rows 12" apart. Then I covered them with a nice thick layer of leaves. I planted 100 heads last year and we've already them all!
We planted 3000 gloves(7 varieties).
We planted them approximately a knuckle(4 inch) apart.
There is huge demand for local garlic in Ontario. People are tired of the dry imported Chinese garlic.
We will be pickling the small ones and sell the big ones for seed purposes.
Hi,
I am hoping you may know the answer to my question. What do you do with the garlic that has already sprouted due to unexpected warm autumn weather? They have grown through the mound of mulch and are now about 8 inches high.
Thanks.
I've read all over that garlic may sprout before winter comes and that it'll be ok. I don't know first hand, however.
Wow! I love the read about all the garlic being planted. Now my 100 cloves seems like a small number. But its mostly nice big cloves. I'm really glad I haven;t had to eat supermarket garlic for a very long time now!
Gail: My garlic usually sprouts in the fall and this has not been a problem. I often have 2 to 6 inches of growth. The greens generally look a bit ragged after the winter, but start up growing again nicely in the spring. But I notice you are located further north than me, in Canada. I don't know if its colder there than here, and its always hard to know how cold the coming winter will be. Ideally, garlic should be planted in the fall 3-4 weeks before the soil freezes so that a good root growth is started, but no above ground growth.
I have a great garlic book "The Complete Book of Garlic" by Ted Meredith (I highly recommend). He writes that one year a New York garlic grower started planting cloves immediately after harvest and continued planting weekly until the ground froze. The harvest was generally good, except for cloves planted before September 1, which had 12+ inches of growth exposed during the winter. Garlic is very hardy and can withstand frost very well. The main problem for the leaves is drying out from low humidity and strong winds. Sounds like you have a nice cover of mulch, so this is good. I bet they will be fine.
A task I still need to do and find a spot for.
Thanks for the suggestions. Will look for that garlic book.
Along with 45 other garlic cloves, I planted 3 Elephant garlic cloves (almost the size of a garlic head). I wonder how big they will become. Have you ever tried Elephant garlic?
Have you ever tried growing grocery store garlic? I did this last year as an experiment and it was very successful. Almost every single clove sprouted.
I was surprised because they store bought heads were most likely a Californian variety and I am in Michigan. Grocery store garlic is also a fraction of the price compared to seed company garlic. It tasted great too!
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