Last updated on December 13th, 2019
Shall we plant some garlic today? For the best harvest, I always plant the crop in mid-October, several weeks before the first frost. The bulbs need time to make roots before the ground freezes solidly. Once rooted, garlic can survive sub-zero temperatures. Read on, and I’ll show you how to plant, grow, harvest and store garlic:
Types of Garlic
There are two types of garlic: soft neck and hard neck. Soft neck varieties feature multiple rings of cloves that are large on the outside, and ridiculously small (and rather useless, IMO) on the inside. Because it has a long (-ish) shelf life, soft neck garlic is standard for supermarkets.
I’m a big fan of hard neck garlic. This kind produces just one ring of large cloves, so there’s no waste. And as an added bonus, in early summer the bulbs send up curly shoots, or “scapes.” Garlic scapes are screamingly-delicious.
Where to Obtain “Seed” Garlic
In my experience, locally-grown garlic from the supermarket (or farmers’ market) is always viable for planting. For special varieties, visit one of the many online garlic dealers. Or, just save some of your own, home-grown stock for autumn planting. Like I never do.
Location and Soil
Garlic doesn’t grow well in part shade, so be sure to select a planting-site that receives all-day sunshine. Soil must be fertile and well-draining. A raised bed is ideal. If you don’t have a raised bed, just loosen the plot to a depth of 6 inches, and then amend it with copious quantities of compost or leaf mold. Leaf mold is wonderful stuff. I make it this way.
How to Plant, Grow, Harvest and Store Garlic
First, separate the individual cloves from a head of garlic. Large cloves seem to produce the largest heads.
Next, plant the cloves 3 inches deep, with their pointed tips facing up. I space mine 6 inches apart on all sides. Cover the cloves and gently firm the soil. If your soil is dry, or if autumn rains are absent, moisten the soil thoroughly. Then mulch the bed with shredded leaves or pine needles.
Feeding and Watering.When green shoots emerge in spring, sprinkle the bed with an organic, balanced fertilizer. Give the plants 1 inch of water per week, and they will love you forever.
Garlic Scapes. These curly shoots emerge in early summer from hard neck varieties. I cut them off in order to encourage further development of the bulbs below. I can assure you that garlic scapes make the best pesto on earth.
Honestly, you haven’t lived until you’ve tried Garlic Scape Pesto. Here’s the simple recipe.
And what about pests? Well, there won’t be any pests. Zero. Zilch. Nada. The garlicky-scent is loathed by deer, squirrels, woodchucks, chipmunks, rabbits and vampires. Insects keep their distance, too.
Harvesting. Just when to dig the bulbs is largely a matter of intuition. Some gardeners harvest exactly 3 weeks after the scapes appear. Others, including me, insist on delaying harvest until one-half to two-thirds of the leaves have turned brown. Of course, I always check first, by digging up one or two bulbs. If the heads are large, lovely, and tightly-covered with papery tissue, I know that harvest-time is nigh.
And by the way, never tug on stems. Instead, reach under the soil with your gloved hand (or, use a trowel), and lift up the bulbs.
Curing. After harvest, let the bulbs dry, or “cure” for three to eight weeks in some warm, airy place which is out of the sun. Some years, I cure mine in the garden shed, setting the bulbs — their stems still intact — on an old window screen. The screen is balanced between two pots. This arrangement affords air circulation from both above and below. A wire-mesh table will work as well.
When fully-cured, brush off any clinging soil, and cut stems to within an inch or so of the bulbs. You can remove the fright wig of roots now, too.
Winter Storage. Garlic needs cold temperatures to store well. If you can manage it, 35°F is ideal. In my creepy Victorian cellar, hard neck garlic stays fresh and wonderful for several months in temperatures that range from 40° to 45°F.
Now, if you search this website, you’ll find approximately 300 recipes that use garlic. Here are just a few of my favorites (click titles for step-by-step recipes):
Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic…
And Shirred Eggs with Herbs and Garlic.
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I hope this garlic-growing tutorial was helpful to you some small way. If you have any questions or comments, please post them below.
Penny says
Hello There , I love this about the Garlic I for one love Garlic even raw Garlic at times is tasty thank you for sharing I never really know just how to plant Garlic now I have learned a lot more than I even thought that I would thank you
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Hi Penny – Three cheers for garlic!
Danella on the Canadian west coast says
My garlic will be planted this week so your instructions are perfectly timed. Thanks for all the great recipes too. Love your blog!
Cat Parker says
Hi Kevin! Thank you SO much for the sharing you do! It IS October and I’m looking forward to your costume and menu pics. Happy Autumn
Be Blessed, Cat
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Hi Danella – Glad these instructions (and recipes!) are useful to you. Happy planting (and cooking)!
Hi Cat – Happy autumn to you as well!
Gina Bruehl says
Hi Kevin! I love your blog! Can I plant garlic in a very large pot? Thank you!
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Hi Gina – Garlic should grow perfectly well in a large pot. Happy planting to you!
Michelle Collins says
Another excellent tutorial. You’ve inspired me to plant garlic this week – West Chester,PA. ThanksKevin!
-Michelle
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Hi Michelle – Glad to be of service to you. Happy planting!
gloria says
Thanks for the refresher course- Just getting ready to plant mine-
So satisfying to have a plant with two harvests- scapes and bulbs. It takes care of itself, adds fabulous flavor to other food —- And keeps us healthy!
What a Blessing.
Lynn D. says
I just want to be sure–if I use garlic scapes do I include the tip (the part that would blossom) in the pesto. Thanks for the clarification. I’m going to plant some garlic tomorrow from hardneck garlic that I harvested this summer.
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Hi Lynn D. – You can absolutely include the tip of the garlic scape when making pesto. The whole scape is edible. Happy planting to you!
Rosie S says
Totally off topic, but I just made your mom’s pumpkin bread…it smells SOOOO good, and I add fresh cranberries for a little zing…cannot wait to take this to the gals I volunteer with tomorrow!!! So glad you posted this recipe…I have enjoyed it so!
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Hi Rosie S – One of my favorite recipes. So glad you enjoyed it, too!
Jo says
I’ll give this a try, I have never been successful at growing garlic . Perhaps it’s a combo of lack of adequate sunshine and crappy soil. Or me…
Henry says
Kevin, I love your website! I’ve grown my hard neck garlic in a raised bed for the past two years, and it’s been great! I store harvested garlic in the basement where it’s around 60 in the winter, and it keeps well until spring. The only thing I did differently, is I let the garlic cure for only about a week before cutting the stems about an inch above the bulb. I was also told in a gardening class not to grow garlic in the same place two years in a row because of a fungus whose name I don’t recall. I had already grown it in the same place two years in a row with no issues, but this year I’ll plant it in a different bed. Thanks for all the great information!
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Hi Henry – Kudos on your growing successes! Great to know that garlic can be stored at 60°F. (And yes, best to rotate crops each year in order to avoid fungi and other ailments.)
Marly says
You mention garlic has no pest, but you are wrong. We had an infestation of grasshoppers last year and the first thing they ate were the garlic leaves right down to the ground. The bulbs were small that year. I bought chicks this past Spring then turned the chickens out into the garden when the grasshoppers started showing up in late Summer. It was fun watching those chickens chase and eat those grasshoppers. Very little damage from the hoppers this year, but I had happy chickens!
Ayla says
Kevin…may I say you have such a sweet spirit and kind heart!
Thank you for the effort you spend to share your life with us.
You are enriching and nourishing the world just as you do your gardens….amazing work!
Now I understand I should have removed and used the scapes from the hard neck garlic that seems to have become perennial in areas of my gardens…
If I had time I would read everything you post!
Heart Hugs to you and yours
Ayla WV
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Hi Ayla – What a nice comment to read. Thank you.
Celeste says
Hi Kevin,
I have enjoyed and learned from your posts for several years. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.
This year I kept my geraniums in pots and placed them (and moved the planted pots around) in my garden where I wanted color. It was the first time I had done this and loved it. Also by putting the plants in my fenced vegetable garden, I was able to protect them from the deer. While planting my garlic crop last week, I thought: “Aha, why not plant garlic in movable pots to rotate among the veggies to deter insects?” SOoooo, next year I will have my bed of garlic plus potted garlic to move around!!! I’ll see how that works.
Thanks again for your posts.
Celeste
Linda Paul says
Thank you for this entire column!!
Marcy MacDonald says
I just planted mine in two pots and used dry leaves to cover the dirt. I also use the curly shoots, when they appear in the early summer. Great recipes with the garlic.
Thanks again Kevin
Toni O'Brien says
Kevin, I believe I have saved every Sunday email that I have received from you because there is either a recipe or a gardening tip I will use. Now after two years of saving (and I refer back often) I think with each new email, maybe this will be one I can toss – only because my collection is getting so huge. However, then I read and whadya know? Uh, Uh, no tossing this one! I need this! Always!!
Thank you so much for all of it. You, sir, are one of the blessings I count in my Thanksgiving reflections.
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Hi Toni – What a nice comment. Thank you so much!
Sunny says
I think this is what’s growing in my garden. I planted it a few months ago and when nothing happened planted ginger. And when nothing happened with that planted green onions. The heat got to those and they died off. Then all of a sudden something started to grow. I’ve been afraid to dig it up for fear it hasn’t matured yet. Guess I’ll find out soon!
Ann Waugh says
Well, here it is only November 8 and my garlic is sprouting like crazy. I have some in the garden and some in pots, all sprouting. Some are 5 inches tall and some only 2. What should I do now?? I planted the cloves about mid October. Was that too early for Oregon? We just this morning had our first real frost. Should I just pretend that it’s almost Spring and cut the scapes in December? 🙂 Oregon weather is always unpredictable but still, we do get frosty days in winter.
Lisa Marks says
If you ever have the colder the flu, give this garlic remedy a try. 5 to 6 garlic teeth, feel them and boil them in a cup and a half to two cups of water. When the water turns a little cloudy turn the heat off. Pour the water into a cup. (Reserve the teeth for soup later). Squeeze the juice of a lemon or lime whichever you prefer. And then a generous amount of honey. Stir this together and sip. You should be feeling better in about an hour.
Really! Don’t knock it till you try it. It does not taste garlicy at all. It tastes more like hot lemonade. And if it doesn’t taste like hot lemonade then you need to add more lemon and honey.
P. S. Thank you so much for the information about how to grow and harvest garlic. I have a whole bunch of it in my garden right now. But I didn’t know when was a good time to bring it up out of the ground. I’ve also scattered a few teeth around my tulips and iris bulbs. I usually put them at the end of the row. When a squirrel comes over and pulls one of those up they don’t approach any of the other bulbs.
Colleen Carroll-Nisbett says
Thanks for the handy post on planting drying and storing garlic. I have tried on several occasions to grow garlic and have never been totally successful. Sometimes a total failure!! Your advice is just what I needed.
Thanks Kevin!!
Sam says
the info on growing garlic is great,tho it would have been nice to know what kind of soil it likes…here in Nova Scotia they are finding it helpful to put row covers over the garlic when it starts to poke out of the ground…and YES, I do agree with you that garlic pesto is sooooo goood,and so hard to stay out of once you get eating it,lol..
Ron says
Hi Kevin, this is a great, informative article. I’d like to make one suggestion – don’t plant garlic near where onions are or were planted. Onions attract onion maggots and the maggots also eat garlic. I’ve always grow 150-200 heads of garlic every year. Two years ago I planted onions in my garden for the first time. Most of my garlic was infested with the maggots and lost. It took some research to find out what the bugs were and even more research to find a way to deal with them. Everything I read said the best way to get rid of them was to not plant onions, chives, or garlic again. I grow organic so poisons we’re out of the question. Commercial beneficial Nematodes were the answer to the onion maggots and they also eliminated the flys that were destroying our blueberries. The nematodes attack the eggs and larvae in the soil before they take flight and attack the plants.
Marcy MacDonald says
I planted my Garlic last week. Now I see my radishes are almost ready to harvest.