It grows best when planted during the fall or early winter, and it needs to go through cold weather before starting to grow properly.
Here are 5 tips for growing garlic that you should know:
PLANT SEED GARLIC
The germination rate for domesticated garlic is extremely low. This is because most varieties of garlic are propagated from cloves, which almost always have sterile seeds due to the thousands of years that farmers spent selecting crops based on certain characteristics that discourage fertility.
PLANT DEPTH OF GARLIC DEPENDING ON WINTER CLIMATES
To plant garlic, you’ll need to start with several cloves and separate them into individual pieces. Plant the biggest ones closest together so they have enough room to grow big roots. If your winters are harsh, make sure these are at least 2-4 inches deep in soil otherwise it might not survive through winter. Also be careful about where you get seed garlic from because if it doesn’t adapt well here then planting will take longer than expected!
ADD OATS TO THE SOIL
Garlic development is especially beneficial in regions with harsh winters because it can be mulched. A quick case that would work particularly well for such an environment is to: sow oats into garlic beds in late August or early September, and cut through the oats to plant your cloves when you are ready to do so. The oat seed will die back over winter leaving a successful dead mulch of straw behind and it won’t interfere with new growth.
REMOVE THE SCAPES FROM PLANTS SO THEY HAVE MORE ENERGY FOR BULB DEVELOPMENT
To do this, cut or snap off a woody stem that will appear in the end of most plants during their growing cycle. The stems are called scapes and should be removed on sunny days when plant injuries can dry out quickly. Don’t toss them into compost piles because even if they’re soft at first, cooking with these prepared items makes great dishes like pesto sauce–and farmers sell $1-3 dollars per pound!
DON’T OVER-FERTILIZE GARLIC PLANTS
A few final words of advice: you should use high-phosphorous compost, such as bat guano or fish supper for power growth in your garlic. But don’t go overboard with it; otherwise the bulbs won’t be large enough!