planting garlic is on our minds

The seed garlic arrived last week!!  

Every September for the past few years, my parents have sent me a nice big box of their gorgeous homegrown garlic for me to use as seed for my yearly garlic crop.  My Dad always does such a careful job of curing it, neatly trimming and cleaning it all up. 

There's always some extra to offer up to Mayne Islanders who'd like to grow their own too.  In the last couple years so many more people are feeling enthusiastic about growing their own garlic. 

The counting and bagging for all the folks who got on my list has begun.

This is last year's garlic patch at my parent's place.  Very straight rows,  so neat and tidy.  So level!  So few rocks in the soil!  Not like at my place.  This is in southwestern Ontario, near Lake Erie.
If you're getting seed garlic from me, this is where it comes from.  Grown naturally, with no synthetic chemicals.
The crop I grow here in my garden has been long gone.  All sold to folks at Mayne Island's Farmer's Market. (except for what I keep for our kitchen, of course : )

This is my Dad, surveying his crop in April....looking good.... (photo by Mom)
For more about garlic and planting it, here are all my past posts on GARLIC
And if you signed your name on the seed garlic list this summer, you can expect a call or email from me soon!

garlic

The garlic is looking good these days.  A little later than some years, but it seems like it has enjoyed the cooler wetter spring...maybe that'll mean some nice big bulbs this year.  Above is the garlic crop at the beginning of April and below is what it looks like now.  It grew a lot....over 3 feet tall now!

Soon the scapes will be out and it'll be time for garlic scape pesto!!  Yum, can't wait!

This year's garlic crop is all sold out. Here I am moving some from the spot where it was curing and getting it ready to sort and bag up for my customers.

I harvested the garlic back in July. Time to think about planting next year's crop now. Here are some plants after I pulled them and cleaned them up a little. They are curing on a table in my outdoor covered workshop space. This year, I spread them out on tables and put them up on some wire mesh racks that I have installed in the rafters...see my photo of the garlic curing in the rafters here. Many garlic growers hang their garlic in little bundles to cure but since I have the space, I do it this way...it seems less time consuming and works well too.

Garlic looks so lovely with it's stalks left on, bundled and hung in the kitchen....which is what I do with mine after it's cured and cleaned. It's easy to just take a clove from a bulb when you want to use some too....I've also noticed that garlic keeps over winter much better when the stalk is left on. I'm not sure why, but it works. Here it is hanging in my kitchen, waiting to be used up.

And below, all bagged up and waiting for customer pick-up. I give everyone the whole garlic plant so they can decide if they want to hang it or maybe cut the top leaves off and put it upside down in a vase (which is a fun way to display garlic in the winter!...see above link for a photo of that too)

If you're reading this and would like to pick up a bundle of garlic in a bag like this from the garden next August for 2011-12 winter eating, let me know and I'll plant some with your name on it :-)

garlic scapes!

Summer must be here because the scapes are ready for picking. On a garlic plant the scape is the flower stalk that the plant develops in early June. Most garlic growers remove the scape when it starts to curl because they believe that when it's removed the energy of the plant will be directed into making a nice big garlic bulb rather than the flower and seed head. Lots of folks just throw them in the compost but some of us love them as a special early summer-time treat....garlic pesto is yummy!

Below, some scapes bagged up for one of my customers with a simple garlic scape pesto recipe attached. Let's go make some!!......
Take 7 or 8 scapes and put them in a blender with about 1/2 cup of olive oil, puree. Mix in some parmesan cheese, about 1 cup and 3 or 4 tablespoons of lemon or lime juice...salt to taste. I like to dollop this on potatoes, or anything, really. yum.

The garlic is planted!

This year I planted my garlic on the 2 days after the full moon. Some folks believe that when the moon wanes after it has been full, a strong gravitational pull is created that draws more energy down into the soil and into root growth. That's why the few days after a full moon are believed to be the best time to plant garlic which is a bulb and needs to develop it's roots once it's planted. I don't know that much about it but I'm attracted to the idea of following the phases of the moon while I garden. This year, the 2 days after the November full moon, the 3rd and the 4th seemed like really good timing for planting garlic here on the coast.


Many folks who visit the garden tell me they'd like to grow garlic and ask me how to do it.

So here's what I do:

1. Prepare a growing spot. Garlic likes rich soil with lots of organic matter. I add composted manure, garden compost and complete organic fertilizer to my growing beds.

2. In late October or early November I separate the cloves of the planting bulbs. I try to do this just before I plant. Be careful not to damage them...I have read that a little nick can encourage disease in the soil to develop as the clove sits during our long wet coastal winters. You can buy planting garlic from organic farmers in your community or from seed companies that sell it.

Here's a snapshot of some garlic cloves separated and waiting to be planted.

3. I plant the cloves into trenches I've made in the soil or sometimes I make holes with a dibble and place each clove in the hole, pointy end up. Each plant will need about 4-6 inches between it and it's neighbour to grow into a nice big bulb. I put each clove down about 4-6 inches and cover the hole with soil.

Below, I'm placing the cloves into the soil.

4. When the cloves are all planted and covered with soil, I mulch with a nice thick layer of compost. I don't mulch with straw over the winter.
Later in the season, (April or May) I'll add more compost and mulch with straw to help keep the soil from getting too dry. I have to be careful to conserve water and am fortunate to have a garden in a very wet area. If it's a really dry spring I may water 2 or 3 times but last year I didn't water at all. My garlic probably would have been larger if I had watered it but it's still good. You'll have to plan for water collecting if you garden in a very dry spot.

5. Around the beginning of June, I'll remove the scapes which are the curly flower stalk of the garlic plant. I've read that if this is removed, the plant puts it's growing energy into producing a larger bulb underground, rather than producing seeds. Some people have told me that they don't think this makes any difference but I love the pesto I make from the scapes, so I remove them for a tasty late spring treat!

Removing and collecting the scapes from the garlic plants.

6. I do my best to keep the bed weeded and in July, I harvest my garlic bulbs when I see that the bottom 3 or 4 leaves are dead and the top few are still green. I often pull a couple just to make sure it's ready.

7. After the garlic is pulled, I cure it in my shed that is cool, protected from the sun and well ventilated by an occasional sea breeze. I don't think it's a very good idea to cure it in the sun. After 3-4 weeks of this curing, it's ready to clean up and take to the kitchen.

Below is a photo of the harvested garlic curing on racks under the garden workshop roof. For some folks, it's more convenient to bundle the plants up in groups of 6-8 and hang them from the ceiling to dry.

One of the things I love about my garlic crop is that it gives me 3 harvests during the growing season:

1. Early in spring or sometimes even in late winter I harvest some new little plants and use them as I would green onions, mostly chopped up and thrown into something, even just a salad. Yum! What a welcome taste of fresh green flavour at that time of year.

2. In June, I harvest the scapes and make Garlic Scape Pesto.

3. And in July, I finally get to harvest the bulbs!

The first year I grew garlic I was so excited to realize that I could keep the stalks on some of my bulbs and use them as kitchen decoration first, before we eat them. The stalks can be put in a vase with the bulb up, displayed as a garlic bouquet. It looks lovely! Folks love receiving this as a gift too.

I'm wishing you great success with your garlic crop this year!