I’m so excited to share this with you! I was talking with my friend Jessica who writes The Rowdy Radish -a site dedicated to the belief that food is medicine, health and wellness come first and fat is delicious https://therowdyradish.com/. I was talking about how amazing garlic is. She said, “I use a lot of garlic because it is so good for you. In fact, I grow and store a year’s worth of garlic, just so I have it available.”
Of course I wanted to know how to grow and store a year’s worth of garlic! She was gracious enough to share this with me and all the Victory Garden growers. I think you will find this fascinating and inspiring and will be adding garlic to your Victory Garden like I plan on doing – although I may start a bit smaller. (See the amazing benefits of garlic here.)
For the last 3 or 4 years, we’ve been able to grow a year’s worth of garlic in our backyard garden. If, like me, you’re relatively new to growing a victory garden, it might seem daunting to grow a year’s worth of garlic. Don’t worry – it’s much easier than it sounds! In fact, my friend Victory Garden Gal writes all about victory gardens and how to create one of your own.
When we bought our current house, there was already a backyard victory garden in place from the prior owners. They were avid organic gardens who took great care of the soil. Living on a harbor, they would bring seaweed up from the ocean to add in to the compost. We found seashells, bones, and all sorts of nourishment in our soil.
We also found, to our delight the next Spring, garlic. Volunteer garlic was springing up throughout the garden after years of planting. Never having grown garlic, we had no idea what this tall, green plant was. Tugging one out of the ground revealed a newly forming head of garlic.
Garlic and scapes
Garlic is a member of the allium family along with chives, onions, leeks, and others. The garlic bulb forms under the soil with tall green shoots coming out of the top and, eventually, a long, curling scape. That scape is the reason we had so much volunteer garlic in our yard.
A garlic scape will eventually form its own small bulb of garlic on the end, called a bulbil. If the garlic is never harvested and the scape and bulbil are left in place, the scape will eventually reach down to the earth and “plant” its bulbil into the ground, seeding the next round of garlic bulbs. I love finding surprise garlic plants popping up all over our garden in Spring.
While it’s fun to let some garlic go to seed and plant itself, that’s not how we grow a year’s worth of garlic in our garden. To grow our supply, we select the largest, healthiest looking cloves from our harvested and dried garlic and plant these back into the garden each Fall.
Health benefits of garlic
Garlic has long been used as food-based medicine because of its many beneficial properties. Some of garlic’s better known health benefits include its use as a heart disease preventative and treatment, ability to reduce the risk of certain cancers, effect to help control high blood pressure, and its well-known antimicrobial, antiviral, and anti-fungal properties.
Given our current focus on the immune system, garlic’s antiviral and antimicrobial properties should be enough to have you adding a clove or 3 to your dinner each evening. If you don’t mind the taste, a few cloves in your morning smoothie are a terrific immune booster.
Garlic is loaded with flavanoids, amino acids, sulfur, and vitamins and minerals. It is one of the least expensive health foods to include in your anti-inflammatory, nutrient dense diet. And, as you’ll read here, you can easily cultivate your own crop in any size backyard, victory garden.
Sizing up your garlic needs
Let’s talk about how much garlic and space you need to grow a year’s worth of garlic in your garden. I use a lot of garlic when cooking! In an average week, I use between 1 – 5 heads of garlic. When planting, I plan for 3 heads a week at 52 weeks in a year = 156 heads of garlic!
Some of the garlic we grow will be used to seed next year’s crop. We always use the largest heads for seed garlic. You should assume each head will yield about 4 cloves of garlic to plant. That’s a really conservative estimate – our heads usually have at least 6 – 8 planting worthy cloves.
The Spring garlic that pops up throughout my garden usually fills any gap I might have after depleting the stored garlic. After a long winter, it’s amazing to pluck Spring garlic from the garden.
How to plant garlic cloves
As for planting, cloves need to be spaced about 4 – 6 inches apart in rows that are about 1 foot apart. We rotate the garlic plot in our garden each year to a different spot. Our plot generally has rows that are about 10 feet long, which means we can plant about 25 cloves per row. So we need 5 – 6 rows to yield the 150 or so heads to grow a year’s worth of garlic.
If you’re doing the math, you know that this means you need an area about 10’ by 6’ or 7’ for your plot to grow a year’s worth of garlic based on my usage. Don’t have that much space? That’s okay! Start with what you’ve got and see how much garlic it yields.
When to plant your cloves
Wondering when to plant your garlic? Garlic gets planted in the Fall, generally, about 6 to 8 weeks before the average first frost. In our zone 5b garden, we plant in mid to late Oct. To plant, just separate each clove from the head and plant the clove pointy side up about 2 inches deep. Cover the garlic bed with a layer of straw or hay to insulate it through the winter. Come Spring, remove the cover layer from your garlic once you see green leaves emerge. In early summer, you’ll see the tall, thin, curly scapes forming on your hardneck garlic. Most garlic growers believe you should cut the scape off to allow the plant to send its energy to the formation of the bulb and that’s what we do, too.
Putting those scapes to use:
The scapes are delicious when combined with pine nuts, walnuts, or sunflower seeds, olive oil, parmesan, lemon and basil to make a pesto. Or just process the scapes with a little olive oil or water and freeze it for use in soups, pasta, or to make a garlicky butter in the dead of winter.
If breaking out the food processor is a bit too much for you, the scapes look really cool in flower arrangements. A handful placed in a ball jar by themselves are fun and Seuss like. Or pop a few in with some Spring blooms to make an artful arrangement.
You can also cook with scapes just as you would garlic. Chop the scapes and sauté with onions and carrots for a soup or pasta sauce base. Or roast them whole along side other veggies.
When to harvest garlic
Your garlic is generally ready to harvest when the bottom leaves turn yellow. In our zone 5b, that means mid to late July. Harvest your garlic by pulling the head up by the leaves. Give it a good cleaning with a towel or your hands to remove most of the dirt.
Garlic can be used fresh right after harvesting but you’ll be drying the majority of your harvest in order to use it throughout the next year. To use fresh garlic, cut the head off of the stalk. You may want to use strong clippers to clip the head off of the woody stalk. The cloves will have a thick skin around them. Simply pull it apart and peel it away from the clove.
Drying garlic
There are lots of different opinions and methods to drying garlic. After harvesting our garlic, we lay it out in the sun to dry for the rest of the day. This also makes it easier to remove any remaining clumps of dirt on the bulb.
Garlic will dry and cure best in a shady, cool, dry spot with sufficient air circulation. In our damp, coastal climate, this often means our basement is the best location. Bunch your garlic into groups of 5 or 6 and tie them together. Then hang each bunch from a clothesline or other hanging situation.
If your curing location is damp and indoors, you many need to set up a dehumidifier or fan to be sure the garlic dries and cures. In our basement, the heat pump water heater does the work of a dehumidifier leaving the space sufficiently dry and cool.
Storing your garlic
Your garlic is ready for trimming and storing when the stalks are brown and dry. At this point, cut the stalks off of each head, trim any roots on the bottom of the bulb, brush off any remaining dirt, and organize your garlic bulbs according to how you’ll use them. The best and biggest are allocated to planting in the Fall. I’ve learned to eat my remaining large bulbs first and keep the smaller bulbs to store through the winter. The small bulbs seem to last a little longer than the larger ones in my storage area.
Speaking of storage, your garlic bulbs will last longest if stored in a dark, dry, cool place. We use paper bags to hold our bulbs but mesh bags may work better. You may also opt to leave your garlic hanging through the Fall/Winter for storage. I prefer the convenience of having my neatly trimmed bulbs close to my kitchen.
Your stored garlic should last a good 6 months, maybe longer. Our supply typically remains viable through March of the following year, though some bulbs will be a little soft at this point. If any of your bulbs begin sprouting, plant the cloves to harvest as Spring garlic – similar to a scallion but with a definite garlic flavor.