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Planting, Growing, and Harvesting Garlic
- Learn how to make your own garlic powder to easily spice up a recipe.
- Roasted garlic bulbs are also a favorite of ours!
- Around the summer solstice (late June), hardneck garlic sends up a seed stalk or scape. Allow it to curl, then cut off the curl to allow the plant to put its energy into bulb formation. Use the scapes in cooking the same way you would garlic bulbs. We like to stir-fry scapes the way we cook green beans—similar, with a spicy kick! Note that they get more fibrous and less edible as they mature.
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I use garlic in the spring to keep the deer out of my flowers. They tend to like the early foliage of some plants (peppers, flowers, and hasta) so I sprinkle diced dried garlic around them to ward off those pesky deer and other animals. Works great, but can be expensive so that’s why I’m wanting to grow my own garlic
So..I purchased garlic from a farm last summer and put them in my fridge in a paper bag in September. I planted some of the garlic at the end of October in grow bags. I wasn't sure if I wanted to plant all of the garlic because I thought it would be too much for me(it was 4 different varieties with 3-4 bulbs each). Well the garlic I did not plant is still in my fridge and still looks the exact same as when I received them. Just wondering if I would still be able to plant those cloves?? or are they edible at all? I don't want them to go to waste. I live in Arizona Zone 9b
Hi Tracy,
You can certainly still plant your garlic, but you want to get it in soil as soon as possible so it can begin growing roots and become established before the hot weather truly sets in. It is best to plant garlic in the fall, but a spring planting in milder climates like yours is possible. And if all goes well you will be able to enjoy the garlic scapes this summer. Just know that the bulbs you harvest will not be as large as they would be if planted in the fall. Only time will tell if your garlic will produce, but it’s worth a try and you’ll know that those farm grown bulbs you bought last summer didn’t go to waste.
Great job here, thanks! At 65+ , I've only just recently discovered how much I love fresh garlic on so many things. I am starting some cloves right now in large cottage cheese containers, until I get a raised bed assembled here (in the middle of nowhere, in the High Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico, against the foothills of our Sacramento Mountains). I make a *medicinal-grade* Black Bean Soup with 3 colors of bell peppers, gobs of yellow onion in many shape/sizes, and ... all the garlic I can fit into the stock pot!
My morning eggs are also heavily doped with this freshly minced God-send(!)
I have dried my garlic but some have grown seed heads while drying! Is it ok to plant those with flower/seed heads? They are the biggest of the whole bunch!
Dear Dorrine,
Thanks for the note! As you’ve discovered, some varieties of garlic will flower and create bulbils, especially if the garlic scapes aren’t cut and harvested. Garlic isn’t propagated through seed; it can be grown from bulbs or bulbils. There are pros and cons to planting bulbils: they may be more resistant to rot, but they can take three years to grow a full size head of garlic. Sounds like a great year for you to experiment!
—The Editors
That was useful information but I'd like more on indoor starting in the little cubes. When to start, depth of planting, how big a cube, how long can they grow indoors and when to transplant and how are just a few questions that I have.
Garlic needs to be planted outside in fall so it can have it's dormancy period (this only works in areas that actually get cold in winter, of course!). If it doesn't get that, it won't grow nearly as large.
I made the mistake of washing my garlic after I pulled it out of the ground. (I also made the mistake of looking up harvesting garlic after I harvested it!) What can I do with it now that it is washed? It is still attached to the stalks.
Hi Gwyn-
While not ideal, not all is lost! Cure the garlic as outlined in the article (you need to cure it a bit longer to ensure it is completely dry) and then store it as mentioned. You will want to use it quickly, as the garlic may not store through the winter with the extra moisture that the washing introduced. We can assure you that your garlic will still be delicious!