Growing Garlic

Growing Garlic Growing garlic really isn't that difficult. In fact we would venture that growing garlic is probably the easiest thing to grow in your garden!

It was a cool October afternoon. Brown Maple leaves swirled around my feet. Not exactly a promising day for starting a garden but that’s what we were doing. We were growing garlic. You see the best time to plant garlic is in October.

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A few years back we paid a visit to Ted Maczka, the Fish Lake garlic Man in Picton Ontario. Maczka was reported to be growing the best garlic in our area, and we wanted to grow this pungent vegetable for our market garden. He taught us everything we needed to know about growing garlic.

Maczka, who is over 60, grows about 20,000 cloves of garlic a year for the local restaurant trade. He loves to eat it too. “Three or four cloves on a slice of rye bread for breakfast is just about right”, he tells us.

He instructed us, “It’s important to grow the strain of garlic that is suited to your climate. If you can find a commercial grower in your area to buy seed stock from all the better.”

We settled on Red Russian (very strong) and elephant garlic. Maczka gave us our original cloves to start in our market garden.

Allium Sativum (garlic), the lowliest of the lilies, is not difficult to grow but timing is critical. It can be planted in spring, but it’s best planted about the time you would plant tulips. Maczka instructs, “It needs a month of temperatures just above freezing (32-50 F.) and a long growing season to mature. Fall planted garlic produces a greater harvest. The exception would be in extremely cold areas; spring planted garlic is more reliable.

We live in a cold zone 4 climate and have never had a winterkill problem in 7 years. We plant our garlic in fall because the roots develop, and it can sprout early in the Spring. We’ve even had late snows come and cover the newly emerged green growth. They yellowed slightly but were none the worse for wear.

We use raised beds to grow our garlic because they allow for good drainage and the soil warms earlier in the spring. The stream that winds its way through our property tends to overflow its banks in spring so the raised beds provide added flood protection as well. Garlic won’t do well in a wet spot.

In early September we prepare the beds about the width of our rototiller. We purchased a Hiller/Digger attachment for our rear-tine tiller some years ago. It fits on the back of the tiller and digs a trench in the freshly tilled soil. It works great, and has saved us hours of backbreaking work with a rake making raised beds. As the years pass every laborsaving device takes on a greater importance in our market garden.

We incorporate fall leaves, wood ashes, and manure in the beds. We try to use well-rotted manure with straw in it. Too much nitrogen tends to burn the foliage of the new green shoots. The individual cloves are planted upright about 2” deep and 6” apart in double rows. This allows for easy hoe work in summer. One thing to remember is that garlic is a repellent plant and other plants close by can be affected by its presence. Maczka says, “Plant tomatoes or potatoes close by. They’ll do fine.”

When spring arrives it’s important to keep weeds to a minimum. We try and hoe or hand pull weeds once a week. The next job is topping the seed head. After the plant is growing well a vigorous flower shoot will appear at the top of the plant. It should be nipped as soon as it appears so that the energy of the plant can be directed towards bulb growth.

This decorative top is a great addition to salads. It isn’t quite as strong tasting as the cloves. We do this job over a 2-week period so we can enjoy these fresh green morsels.

If you leave the seed heads to form you will get about 100 tiny bulbils, which can be planted too. It takes two years to form full-size cloves this way. The first year you only get a regular bulb. If you decide to plant the tiny bulbils they should only be planted ½” deep about the same time as you’d plant the other bulbs.

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Insect problems through the season are nearly non-existent. This could well be due to the plant’s repellent properties. In our organic garden we use no pesticides so this is a most welcome addition to our garden.

After the tops start to die back in late summer it’s time to harvest your garlic. It starts to turn from the bottom so you have to pay close attention at this point. If you leave it too long you get over-dried dark skins. It’s alright to eat, but it can’t be sold in stores.

Cure the bulbs by hanging them in a well-ventilated place or lay them in the sun for a week, covering them, or bringing them in at night. Cured garlic is best stored in a cool dry place in mesh bags or braids.

At this point you should select the biggest cloves for planting stock. Ted Maczka says, “This is the most important thing I do all year. By using only your best cloves you insure a good crop for next year”. When visiting Farmer’s Markets and grocery stores Ted wears 25 lbs. Of garlic braids around his neck as advertisement. He’s hard to miss, and this is how we first came into contact with the Fish Lake garlic man. His sweatshirt proclaimed that’s who he is. And he loves growing garlic.

Every year our garlic patch has grown more vibrant and our yields have grown dramatically. Our market customers appreciate our efforts as well.

I can’t quite match Ted Maczka’s flair for sales or growing garlic, but I hope to maintain his health and vitality at his age. It must be all that garlic he eats.