Earthblog

Fort Collins Home Grown Food had a fabulous event about garlic on October 14^th at the Unitarian Church. I use a lot of garlic in my cooking and otherwise don’t know that much about the plant. So I was thrilled to spend the evening with 25 garlic enthusiasts from Loveland to Bellevue, from old town gardeners to family farmers and cooks. We shared garlic growing info, techniques and experiences.

Mary Brodahl from Goathill Garden led the workshop. Mary is a soil scientist by trade and works with USDA Agricultural Research Service. At home Mary focuses on garlic and has for the last 10 years. Drawing from this expertise, she outlined everything we needed to know about garlic planting, harvesting and preserving.

Here’s a summary of what Mary shared, and at the end of the article some websites you may find useful during your garlic exploration.

Types of Garlic:

Hardneck varieties usually produce six to ten large cloves. Cloves surround a stiff, flowering stalk, called a scape, sent up from the plant in early summer. Hardneck varieties range from truly mild to super hot and will store six months or longer in favorable conditions.

Softneck varieties produce numerous smaller cloves layered around a pliable stem. This is the variety that tends to get braided.  They store up to a year in appropriate conditions and supposedly, compared to hardnecks, are a much more forgiving plant to grow.

Planting:

Garlic is planted in the fall like other bulbs. Nighttime temperatures should be in the 40s(this is the temperature that garlic sprouts; a good reason not to store your garlic in the fridge) and it should be planted about 6 weeks before the soil freezes.  Garlic can also be planted in spring if garlic greens are what you’re after.  There was talk of garlic even being planted in the middle of the winter and still doing okay, but this is not advisable as a thawed ground is easier to dig!

As with all plants, remember to pay attention to your climate, microclimate and know your soil. You should know the ph, texture and content of your soil at least a foot down.

Garlic, although a very forgiving plant does grow better in certain conditions. Well drained soils are ideal but of course you need to take care to keep nutrients around the roots and garlic will grow in either full or partial sun.

Use firm cloves with no blemishes and you can treat for bugs, fungi, and bacteria with a hot water treatment. Try to keep the wrapper on the clove to help protect it from dessication. Plant the clove root down a few inches into the ground —about twice the length of the clove.

The spacing should be about 3 times the bulb size in all directions. So, 1.25” cloves should be about 3.5 - 4” apart.

Mulching is a very important part of the planting process it will make a big difference in bulb size and we all know size matters, what a task trying to use small cloves to cook! At some point between planting and when really cold weather kicks in, mulch with leaves, grass clippings, straw etc. and go about 3-6” deep .

Soak the mulch down with water so it doesn’t disperse and it should be good until February. If it’s been a wet winter, you should not need to do anything, if it’s been dry, then watering will be a good idea at this point.

Harvesting and Curing:

For most varieties in this part of Larimer County, harvesting will happen around the last week of June. For hardnecks, once the lowest leaf is senesced, cut back on water to start the curing process in the ground. Hardnecks will send up a scape(flowering stalk) that will curl. In order to promote bigger bulbs you should cut these just above the top leaf right after they have curled (true for most varieties but not all).  They are very tasty so don’t waste them!

Softnecks are ready when 30-40% of the leaves have senesced or when the plant falls over. Then you will cut back on water.

Curing—an important part of food preservation I am just learning about—is the final process before storage.  After carefully removing bulbs from the ground, leave the leaves and stalks on and find a dry, well-ventilated area. You can either bundle and hang them—bulbs up; leaves down—or just leave them separate. Bulbs are cured when leaves and stalks are dry; this could take 2-3 weeks depending on weather and size of bulb—bigger takes longer.

This is just a summary of what Mary handed out. Please do some research yourself if you would like to know more. Check out these websites to find out more about garlic, your soil, and Homegrown Foods.

http://www.filareefarm.com/

http://soildatamart.nrcs.usda.gov/ - takes some navigating to find information

http://www.homegrownfoodcolorado.org/