How to Grow Garlic - COMPLETE GUIDE (Planting to Harvest)

this video covers an entire year in the process of growing garlic from putting the cloves in the ground to harvest to saving new cloves and starting the whole process over again hi i'm gardner scott i'm a master gardener and i discuss everything gardening so that you can become a better gardener today let me show you how to grow garlic today i'm going to harvest my garlic the process began nine months ago and i'm going to show you every step in the process so let's go ahead and jump back nine months hi i'm gardner scott and today is one of my most favorite days of the year it's the day i plant garlic for me it's the beginning of october which is perfect for my zone five garden garlic takes eight to nine months to grow from putting the clove in the ground to harvesting the bulb and i'll be showing you that entire process you should grow garlic in a spot that gets at least six hours of sun each day and the more the better the soil should be as rich as possible and as loose as possible you really don't want a compacted soil because the individual garlic cloves as they grow into bulbs need to expand so a looser soil will allow those cloves to expand much easier i'm going to plant garlic throughout this entire bed 12 different varieties and much of it will be used next october for the following year's plants but a lot of it's also going to be used in my kitchen to get the best results i like to lay out the garlic in a grid pattern six inches apart from every individual clove that's about 15 centimeters so i begin by putting my plant tags six inches apart to identify where the rows are going to be and then as i lay out the individual cloves i'll place them six inches apart as i get ready to plant i'll break apart the bulb to release the individual cloves inside and i'll just continue separating these bulbs into individual cloves for planting first because i do like to have everything spread out so i'll just go down the line and get the cloves ready to go the number of cloves will vary by the different types of garlic at this point i'll just separate out the cloves and that'll give me an idea of how many i'll have to plant in each row it looks like i got six from this matechie the matechi is a hardneck variety of garlic this inch liam red is a soft neck and i've got one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven 12 cloves from this single bulb as i get ready to lay the cloves out for putting them in their final hole i want to pick the best cloves for planting now back to this matechi it's a hard neck and all of the clothes are basically the same size so i'll plant all of these but with this enchiliam red i get cloves of different sizes based on where they are in the bulb so i'll try to focus on these bigger cloves for planting and if i don't need them i'll save these smaller cloves to actually use in the kitchen these bigger bulbs will grow into a much bigger and better bulb next year if you come across any cloves that are really damaged or look like they're starting to rot or maybe they're very dried out well don't even attempt to plant these clothes they're best just to throw in the compost pile if you come across any that look like they have little eggs inside maybe little spider web looking filaments don't even throw these in the compost pile these go into the trash you don't want to introduce any pests into next year's garlic crop as i lay out the cloves i'll actually stagger the rows so when i start a new row i'll make sure that the cloves actually run about at the halfway point between the previous clove spacing you want to bury the cloves at least twice as deep as the clove is tall so for a clove that is one and a half inches or about four centimeters you want to bury it in a hole that's three inches deep or about seven and a half centimeters deep in a bed like this where i have everything precisely measured i will have some cloves left over those little ones that i don't think will grow into very good plants will definitely go into the kitchen to be used for cooking but i do have some robust cloves that can grow into great plants and i'll actually spread them throughout the garden they can be a great aid to you and your pest control because garlic growing alongside many other plants can actually deter some of the pests that you're trying to get rid of already there are three basic methods that i use to plant these cloves when you look at the clove you'll notice one of the tips is definitely flat and one of the tips is definitely pointed it's like a little rocket ship you want the flat piece to be down and you want this pointy piece to be up one way to plant the cloves if you've got a lot in a row is to dig a trench i like to use a trowel that's got measurements on it just to be sure that i'm getting the proper depth so i'll dig the trench down to the point where i want the clove base to be and then when it comes time i just lay the clothes into the trench and then cover up the clothes and this row is now planted the row method is pretty effective if you're planting a border of garlic or putting them in some other section of your yard but for a bed like this where i want everything specifically spaced it doesn't work as well particularly as you start going into the middle of the bed because the rows create soil going out in all directions so i prefer one of the other two methods when i plant like this for precision and this is why i like to use a trowel with measurements i can push the trowel into the soil to the proper depth just pull it aside and then stick the clove in the bottom of that hole and i can just go down the row making sure each of these clothes is perfectly spaced the third method is to make holes ahead of time just punch a grid of holes into the soil drop the clove and cover it up and you'll be ready to go and i used to do that using round wooden pieces wooden dowels that were measured to the proper depth and i would just poke a hole and then drop the cloves in but i started to be a little concerned about soil compaction if i'm pushing that piece of wood into the ground well then it's compacting as i push it in and right where the roots are growing that's going to be the most compacted soil in that hole so since then i've developed this method which is to use a hollow piece this is pvc it's used in irrigation like in a sprinkler system for a lawn and what i'll do is push this into the ground to the proper depth and when i pull it out i'm usually left with a plug of soil inside this hollow piece and i can just knock it out and then i can place the clove into this hole that i've dug and cover it up and for me this works pretty well if the soil is mostly moist you can just do your series of holes and be all ready to go to drop your clothes in because i've grown a lot of garlic over the years and i've done this quite a bit what i find works best for me is to just dig a hole drop in the clove dig a hole drop in the clove and just continue on always being sure to keep the pointy side up and because i've got the measurements on the trowel i can make sure that i'm going down to the exact depth that i'm looking for and this works pretty well i can be pretty fast with this but you can be free to choose whichever method you like best i'm also growing elephant garlic now it's not technically a garlic it's a leek but it tastes like garlic and looks like garlic and it gets quite large this is a single clove which is about as big as some of the other bulbs before i broke them apart because this is bigger it needs to be planted deeper twice the height we also need to give more room for the bulb to develop so i'm spacing this row of elephant garlic at least eight inches away from the other rows and i'm hoping to get some nice robust bulbs of elephant garlic with everything planted now we take the time to water it in very well really nice deep watering with the bed well watered now it's time to add a thick layer of mulch now i like to use straw you could easily use dried grass dried leaves even small wood chips you want to put some protection on the soil the garlic is actually going to start putting out roots pretty quickly if we keep this bed watered even if it's cold outside even if it's snowy the roots will continue to grow and this mulch just really helps keep the temperatures warm as possible as long as possible it also helps protect it over the winter because this garlic is going to be in the ground for nine months in the spring when the weather warms up it's going to pop back into that growth cycle it's strong enough to punch up through all of this mulch which is perfectly fine that's why i like a lighter mulch to make it easier and in the spring this is also like a blanket it helps keep the soil warmer so that that garlic can continue to grow and to help keep the mulch in place i'll give it another really thorough watering and this will help the mulch settle down onto the soil the garlic's in the ground and i'll treat it just like any other seed i'll continue to water to keep the soil evenly moist and it won't be long before those little cloves start sending out roots and the roots will grow until the soil is frozen so i need to make sure that as long as the days are warm i'm out here watering periodically i'll come out and i'll stick my finger into the bed if it's excessively dry even during winter i'll add some water because i don't want those cloves drying out they'll go dormant over the winter but i don't want them to desiccate so winter watering may be necessary if i don't get a lot of snow in the spring i'll be looking for the new green growth as soon as the soil thaws out the garlic's going to pop up in the spring just keep watering the garlic like you would any other plant add additional mulch as necessary to keep the soil covered and the plants will grow fine and you'll start to notice on the hardneck varieties that scapes will develop these are the little vertical curly cues that are completely edible very tasty i'm not trying to show off but this is exactly what your garlic should look like it should be tall dark green and the scapes should start developing on these hard neck varieties this curly cue that develops on the hard neck starts off with a nice big curve but it'll straighten up as it grows that straight scape is a good indication that the plant is getting close to harvest the garlic plants will tell you when it's time to harvest you'll start seeing browning leaves at the base of the plant the hard neck varieties will stay erect but you'll notice three four five then six leaves begin to brown and dry that's a really good indication that it's time to harvest the hardneck varieties also will have their scapes grow vertically now i do encourage that you cut the scapes when they're young when they're still in that curly shape because they're delicious and there are a number of ways you can eat them but i allowed these plants to go vertically so that you could see what they look like and also so that i can show you some pictures of what the garlic seed actually looks like and you can save this seed and plant it if you leave the garlic in the ground and allow some of the seeds to develop the soft neck varieties of garlic will also brown but those plants will typically begin to fall over they won't stay erect in either case what you're looking for is what looks like the plants dying when you see the drying of the leaves it's often a good idea to go ahead and just do a test go ahead and dig up a few of the bulbs to see how they're developing and this actually looks pretty good the bulb's not huge that's okay but it's intact and it looks like it's ready to harvest leaves turning brown on the garlic plants tell us that it's getting close because each of those dried leaves correspond to a layer of the protective covering over the individual clothes you know when you cut the bulb and that papery outer shell is something that you pull off well that papery outer shell corresponds to each of these leaves and we want it to be intact around the cloves it's protection that's why we're waiting until the point that we've guessed the maturity of the bulb by looking at the leaves now this test dig shows us that in this case yes the bulb is mature the cloves are being protected and we're very close to harvest so the next step is to actually leave the garlic in the ground for a few days and stop watering because we want this outer shell to begin to harden to protect the bulb if we harvest everything when everything is still wet you run the risk of actually tearing or breaking this outer shell and your bulbs won't store as long as they might otherwise be able to so let the ground dry out a little bit before you proceed with the rest of the harvest and one way to harvest pretty efficiently is with a garden fork and i'll just place this in the soil and leverage out all of those garlic bulbs you can do this with a shovel or a spade but i find the fork to be very effective and so what i do is loosen the soil and then reach down and pull out the individual bulbs you really don't want to grab and pull because you can pull the stock away from the plant so once the soil is loosened it becomes really easy to harvest and now i'll just reach down and lay all of these bulbs as i continue the harvest i find the garlic fork most efficient if you're growing all the same type of garlic now i've got 12 different varieties here and i'm planning on saving some of the clothes to replant for next year's garden and i don't want to get them all mixed up by just coming in with a fork or a spade and digging up all the bulbs so i'm going to use a trowel and now even though it takes longer i'm going to go through and dig up each of these bulbs individually just so i can keep track of which variety is which as you dig up the cloves go ahead and try to brush off as much of the soil as you can but you don't want to be too rough on the individual bulb because remember this protective layer is still relatively soft we want it to dry out so i'm just going to get most of the soil off of the roots and for now this bulb looks clean enough and as you continue to dig up your bulbs just lay them on the surface of your bed the sun will help them dry out giving it that protection it'll also dry out the soil making it easier to brush off if you choose to leave it on the surface be sure that there's no rain in the forecast for a couple days and that's all you need is just two days so that the sun can help cure those outer layers of the garlic that will give it good protection for good long storage i'm going with another option and that's the same basic concept to cure the garlic allow those outer layers to dry but i'm doing it inside so i've just laid all the garlic out on newspaper and gonna wait for about two or three days for the garlic to cure before i clean it any further after two days of sitting upstairs on newspaper i went ahead and cut off the stalks and tried to brush off as much of the dirt as possible then i came downstairs laid it out on newspaper again and i've waited another three days for it to dry some more to finish cleaning it up i set aside some of the garlic in my kitchen and all this it's down here i left all the plant tags so i know which is which and i'll just try to pull off any remaining dirt trim the roots and try to clean up this garlic as good as possible for storage between now and when i plant these cloves back in the ground and here's a trick i learned from my gardening buddy larry to go ahead and write the name of the garlic and permanent marker right on the bulb so now i don't have to worry about these getting mixed up and separated from the plant tag when it comes time to plant i know this is chestnut red and i'm all ready to go and now i'll put the cleaned trimmed labeled garlic in a box along with plant tags that i can reuse put it in a cool dry dark spot for about the next two months until i'm ready to put these back in my garden and start it all over again the garlic will easily store for two to three months between when i label the bulbs to when i put the clothes back in again for next year's crop and during that two to three month time period well i have plenty of time to scope out my garden and figure out where i'm going to plant garlic again i think it's probably going to be this bit i have some squash and cucumbers growing in it now i've been getting some great harvests many more harvests to come but in about a month i'm going to get my first freeze and it's going to kill these plants well when these plants are dead i'll pull them out i'll revitalize the soil add more organic material and then it's ready for planting again it's ready for garlic so you've seen the whole cycle how we can start with cloves get all the way to harvest save our bulbs and then plant all over again so once you find a variety you like or a garlic that does really well in your area well try this start to finish and over again and you'll have garlic for as long as you have a garden i hope you learned something in this video and if you did well then consider subscribing to the gardener scott channel if you haven't already done so and do click on the bell so you know when new videos are coming out and be sure and share this video with other garlic growers you know who might be interested i'm gardener scott enjoy gardening

Channel: Gardener Scott

Views: 165,145

Rating: 4.9505868 out of 5

Keywords: gardener scott, gardner scott, how to grow garlic, growing garlic, how to grow garlic at home, grow garlic, how to plant garlic, planting garlic, plant garlic, garlic growing tips, garlic plant care, garlic diy, garlic planting and harvesting, garlic planting depth, garlic planting spacing, garlic growing, garlic planting guide

Id: ZsvPUezEHh4

Length: 25min 12sec (1512 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2020