The really simple guide:
Buy some garlic from a reputable supplier,
Prepare a growing area in your garden that receives a lot of sun March to July. Make sure the ground is weed-free, top up the area with good (peat free) compost and add some fertilizer.
In either early December or Early March pull the garlic bulbs into separate cloves (sets)
Plant each set into the soil – leaving about 15cm between each sowing and each line.
Water sparingly and leave to grow. Harvest in either June or end of July.
The Detailed Guide:
Garlic is one of the easiest crops you can grow in your garden. Depending on your space you can grow a year’s worth of garlic in a relatively small area, making it ideal for small garden spaces. Plus some varieties store really well-meaning you really get a lot for little time invested in growing it.
However, as I came to discover just recently garlic is only easy if you know a little bit about when best to plant – and where – for optimum crop harvests in the summer.
Last year I had an appalling harvest. Barely managing to pull three decent bulbs up in the summer. It made sense really because ever since spring that same year the plants began to whither back to almost nothing. No lush green foliage growing, just yellowing leaves that soon dried up and fell off. At the time I put it down to the fact that maybe I’d watered them too much. But it wasn’t me that had overwatered the plants, it was instead the weather, and I hadn’t noticed.
Let me begin at the beginning.
I had planted my garlic sets into a raised bed in the middle of December the previous year and added (as I usually did) straw to protect them from frost. This then set them off to start growing again as soon as the weather warmed up. The problem was we got a lot of rain last winter. The garden flooded a couple of times. But, being raised beds, I thought there was nothing to worry about. That was until recently when I noticed exactly the same thing has happened again this year.
I planted the sets out (omitted the straw this time) mid-December and everything was going okay until the weather changed from frost to rain, and rain and more rain. And as water collected on the ground it really had one of two places to go – run off or sit there being soaked up by the compost in the raised beds. The beds got hammered top and bottom and while a raised bed is great for draining away water, it can only do it so much and so quickly in the time it has between yet more rain. The garlic has, unfortunately, got caught in-between. This is what I didn’t see happening last year, by the time I saw the effects it was already too late.
My garlic, while off to a great start is now starting to feel the effects of all the recent winter weather. And every time I check on the poor things they look pretty upset. The compost is perpetually wet. A little bit too wet because the ground underneath the beds is still draining away.
Is there a solution to this?
Yes, there is. When it comes to gardening there are a few options for growing good garlic.
The first option is to raise the beds. This is the first thing I need to get cracking on as part of the ongoing garden developments – make deeper beds. At the moment they are a mere 15cm high. While using no-dig methods this would usually be high enough. However, on a solid clay garden that takes longer than average to drain (because clay holds incredible amounts of water), it means 15cm just isn’t going to cut it. Instead, it needs to be doubled to 30cm (11inches). That will ensure more compost and better draining. A raised bed can have sides as high as you want, there is no “best height” to have but in the case of garlic 30cm will make a huge difference to any crops I grow while the worms continue to pull the compost into the clay soil below the bed.
The second option, which can be used with the first option, or as a standalone is to grow the garlic sets in potting/seed trays. Or a host of mini pots could be used. Whatever you have to hand. They don’t have to be deep, just deep enough to cover the sets lightly and allow some room for roots to flourish on the bottom. And leave those trays under cover – away from the rain until March when they can then be planted into their final position in the garden. As a bit of an experiment, in December last year I held a few garlic sets back, mostly because they just looked too small to use but neither could I bring myself to just chuck them away. So I thought I’d give them a chance in the polytunnel. Low and behold, they are doing really well and may well end up to be the only garlic sets I have this year (all 6 of them).
It’s also good to set garlic growing this way if you want to leave mulch on your beds over winter.
The third option is to hold off growing garlic sets until March when hopefully the weather is a little bit kinder. But there is a downside to doing this, you’re going to need patience because the garlic won’t be ready to harvest for another 15 months! That’s because garlic needs a cold spell to thrive. I’ve had mixed results trying to grow garlic in this way. If you get a cold spell in March then you could possibly harvest later in the summer but it doesn’t always happen and if doesn’t get cold enough it means a crop is sat in your garden taking up space for far too long. So if space is a premium don’t chance it.
So now you know – garlic is easy to grow as long as you just get the planting done correctly. Preferably in Dec. Plant sets in trays/pots and keep them outside but undercover and then plant them out the following spring. The garlic will love you for it.
As for my garlic? Well, it certainly taught me some big growing lessons this year. I did think about moving the garlic growing in the beds but I don’t want to disturb the roots too much while the weather is still so cold. Instead, I’ll just have to see what survives once spring arrives. And if nothing else, I’ve still got my trusty six plants waiting patiently in the polytunnel for me.
Thank you for reading.