Growing Garlic

Planting

Garlic is planted in the fall. Here in East Central Minnesota, we shoot for the middle of October give or take a couple weeks depending on the weather. The goal is to get it into the ground several weeks before a hard frost to allow for root development to begin, but late enough that top growth isn’t starting before freeze-up. 2025 Update: Last year we moved our planting up a week to two weeks. Most of our garlic performed very well planted that early. Some of the artichokes did emerge before freeze up and suffered more or less because of it. Moving forward we plan on starting to plant the very end of September beginning of October. We will start with the hard necks and end up with the soft necks more toward the middle of October. We are also continuing to experiment with spring planting some soft neck and creole varieties. So far we are seeing positive results from Idaho Silver, Thermadrone, and Denostia Red.

Separate the garlic cloves, but there is no need to unwrap the cloves. There are a number of different soaks that can be utilized to reduce diseases and pests or give the clove a fertilizer boost. We typically use an alcohol soak to sterilize the cloves. Cover the separated cloves with 70% rubbing alcohol for 10 minutes. Plant within an hour.

We till the soil ahead of planting and incorporate a good chicken manure fertilizer. We plant ours in double rows on 30″ centers. Most varieties get planted 4″ apart in the row, larger varieties 6″. Then we mulch the rows heavily with leaves. Good till spring!

Spring

Once the weather has started to warm up, we pull the mulch off the rows, into the isles to help the ground warm up faster. 2025 Update: We didn’t pull the leaves off this year. We did go out periodically to make sure the garlic was coming up through the leaves. Some spots needed to have the leaves pulled off the plants or leaves torn off that were choking a plant. Once all the garlic has emerged we fertilize and mulch. We have used a couple methods for fertilizing. We used to use a liquid fertilizer which would be applied every other week until the scapes began appearing. Yes, we did miss a week here or there. Our preferred liquid fertilizer had been discontinued a few years ago so we’ve been limping along trying to find another one. We have settled on using a dried, granulated chicken manure fertilizer. So now we will top dress down the center of each double row in early spring. We cover everything up with grass mulch as soon as we can start mowing. And that’s it until scapes appear. Just keep the weed pressure down. 2023 Update: This year I am going to use a homemade liquid fertilizer that I made from comfrey, nettle, and marigold to give an early spring boost. I have had a bucket full of the plant material steeping all winter in a temperature-controlled shop (not below freezing). I’ll dilute and apply with a fertilizer application sprayer or watering can to each of the rows once the ground is firm enough to walk on in the spring and possibly two-three weeks later if there is enough left over. 2025 Update: The comfrey fertilizer seems to have been an excellent fertilizer for all of our alliums. Our Ailsa Craig outperformed any previous years growth. Generally our garlic has sized up more uniformly as well. To make the fertilizer, fill a 5 gallon bucket, loosely packed, to just under the rim. Fill with water. Cover loosely (to breathe but keep out flies and mosquitoes). Let sit for a minimum of 6 weeks stirring occasionally. If you trim the leaves off the coarse stems, it should rot completely away to a sludge at the bottom of the bucket. I prefer to let it rot completely away but use it after 6-8 weeks if I’m out. I have used a dilution rate of 3-6 ounces per gallon. When I have more of it available, I use the heavier application rate. We applied every two weeks until scapes began to appear.

Scapes

When scapes begin to appear, sometime in June for us. This is the signal to stop fertilizing if using a liquid fertilizer. Once the scapes reach full curl, remove them at the top of the leaves. We go through every other day till there are no more. It usually takes us about two weeks or so from start to finish. Removing the scapes will allow the energy meant for seed making to be redirected back into the bulb, making it larger. This will be more noticeable in some varieties and less in others. Softnecks that bolt are more likely to bolt down near the bulb. Those cannot be broken off without damaging the entire plant. 2025 Update: We started pulling the scapes earlier this year, taking them as soon as they were long enough to get a good grip on. We also started pulling them out rather than snapping off. We were still able to get a lot of scape material because of pulling them and the plants sized up really well. It is hard to know how much to ascribe to pulling the scapes earlier or not. We also planted earlier and used the comfrey fertilizer. This was not a scientifically performed study. But there didn’t seem to be any negative effect from pulling rather than snapping.

Harvesting

Harvesting garlic for us usually begins in the week or two following the 4th of July. We usually start about the 4th digging one or two every few days to try and assess the readiness of the bulbs. You can judge by leaf tip burning which plants are ready first, but we have found that relying only on leaf tip die back we can sometimes wait a little too long to start harvesting. Waiting too long results in wrapper layers beginning to deteriorate, allowing more disease in and reducing storage life. UPDATE 2025: We have added Xian (turban) which is supposed to have a much earlier harvest period then the rest of the garlic for us. As of June 6th we haven’t harvested it yet but we are watching it closely. August 2025 Update: All our garlic was very late this year. As of August 4th we still have to dig our Chesnok Red, Spanish Roja, and Idaho Silver. This is partially due to business but also just that harvest started so late for us that we are still harvesting. Normally by this time all our garlic is out and dried and ready to go to the market.

If the ground is soft enough we can just pull the garlic right out of the ground. If not, we use a shovel or potato fork to loosen the ground and then pull the plant. We cut off the roots, bunch them in groups of 10 (for counting) and hang in a shed to dry for a couple weeks. Then we remove the stalks and clean of the dirt for storage and selling. 2025 Update: This year we have had some changes in our harvesting/cleaning process. These changes are partially due to the lateness of the harvest. We have had to combine the harvest and cleaning process. We also are attempting to prevent blotch from developing on our Music bulbs. This year, while we have still hung a few varieties right out of the ground, most of the varieties we are running through a cleaning process where we rinse, cut roots, peel one layer of wrapper then size. If we are going to hang it we don’t cut the stem yet. We bunch it and hang it under a fan. Our Music we cut the stalk right away and laid out in crates under a fan right away.

Storage

For our purposes we store them in crates with good air circulation. We still can get a very small amount of mold in the outer wrappers but it doesn’t harm the garlic. For long term storage, keep them in a dry place at room temperature and they should keep for the recommended shelf life according to each variety.