Sunday, January 24, 2010

Garlic!

Today was a gorgeous day! While walking around thinking of ideas for the garden, I discovered that our garlic had already sprouted. We have about five or six shoots showing already! We planted about sixty cloves back in November. We ran out of garlic before the fall last year. We'd like to be able to grow a whole year's supply  so we increased how much we planted this time to see how long it would last.



Garlic is very easy to grow. We actually buy garlic from the grocery store and plant it. It worked very well for us last year and tasted amazing. All you need to do is divide your garlic bulb into individual cloves and plant them pointy side up in the ground. You should space the rows about six inches apart and each garlic bulb six inches apart. If you plant them closer then the bulbs will be smaller since they don't have much space to grow.

This year I was given some garlic seeds and garlic bulbs to plant from a friend who saves her seeds each year. She says the garlic is a Purple Italian variety that was given to her by one of her friends. Hopefully it comes up and does well. It will be my first experience with growing my own bulbs from seeds for the next year as well. 

Most websites I've been to while reading about growing garlic say that garlic is temperamental and hard to grow. I've found the complete opposite was true in my yard anyway. All I do is plant it, cover it with about six inches of leaves and by spring they're shooting out all over the place.  It's usually ready for harvest by July. Garlic also seems to last a fairly long time as well if you braid it and keep it dry. We'll see how long it will keep this year once we harvest.

3 comments:

  1. Jen, I grow garlic, too! It's one of the few thinks I can grow in my deer-infested yard, as the deer won't eat it unless they're truly desperate. And I don't know if you've ever had green garlic or garlic scapes? That's something you can only get by growing it yourself, or sometimes at a farmers' market. Wonderful stuff!

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  2. Yes they are delicious! You can also use the flowers to flavor a soup or sauce they're so strong!

    I don't have any deer issues but recently I've had some neighborhood cat issues. They like to try to use freshly dug beds as litter boxes. I have to be sure to cover with lots of leaves and mulch so they don't try to use em. I just need to let my dog play outside more often... which will happen more and more as it gets warmer.

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  3. I was thinking of growing garlic this year and will try your tip on buying it from the grocery store to plant.

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