How to Plant Garlic, Growing Garlic, Planting Garlic at Home

Easy tips on how to plant garlic in your backyard vegetable garden. Learn the best methods for planting, caring for, and harvesting garlic plants when home vegetable gardening.

Create Your Own Free Square Foot Garden Or Planting Guide

In most parts of the country the best time for planting garlic is in late fall for harvesting the following summer.

Although some gardeners in cooler climates find that garlic planted during springtime does quite well even in the first year.

With vegetable gardening, it all comes down to the groundwork laid out in determining the success or failure of your vegetables.

Download Free Garden Planning Worksheets, Garden Diary, Zone Chart, Or Planting Guide

Garlic, as most cooks and gardeners know, is a pungent member of the onion family.

Its root, unlike the onion, is easily separated into pointed segments called cloves.

These single cloves, planted in the fall, make the big bulbs that are dug up in late summer.

Soil Preparation for Growing Garlic

How to Plant Garlic

This is one of the most carefree crops grown in the garden, making it well worth the minutes it takes for learning how to plant garlic.

Typically, gardeners plant a crop in October; it winters over in the soil and begins its growth as soon as the soil warms in the spring.

How to Plant Garlic--Fall planting

For planting garlic in the fall, choose a sunny spot with well-drained soil.

Plant the cloves so that their tips are about 2 inches beneath the topsoil.

The cloves are planted deeply to prevent them from being heaved out of the soil by winter frost.

Set the cloves in double rows, about five inches apart. Garlic can be grown in wide rows for intensive spacing.

The garlic will be up and growing early in the spring. Mulch plants for extra-early growth in the spring.

How to Plant Garlic--Spring planting

You may also want to plant a second crop in May, depending on your climate.

Both of these plantings will mature in August.

However, the bulbs from the fall planting will be larger as a result of their earlier start.

When planting garlic in the springtime, most gardeners barely cover the cloves.

Garlic's small size makes it easy to pop into open spaces throughout garden beds.

Garlic Plant Pests

Occasional pests are onion maggots and thrips.

Growing garlic has long been held to have insect-repellent powers and is a favorite companion crop for other vegetables in the garden.

However garlic should not be planted with peas, beans, or asparagus.

How to Harvest Garlic

Best Garlic Varieties

How to Plant Garlic--

The bulb separates into divisions which are planted 2" deep, 6" apart in rows 12"- 18" apart.

Silverskin is the most commonly grown variety of garlic as it is easy to grow and stores well.

Another commonly grown variety is Artichoke garlic, which has fewer but bigger cloves and also has a milder flavor than Silverskin.

The artichoke garlic's skin is more coarse than Silverskin, and sometimes has purple splotches on the white wrapper.

The variety Jumbo Elephant is six times larger than regular garlic.

The plants are sub-zero hardy, producing cloves with a mild, delicate garlic flavor.

Cloves usually take the second year to make giant sized bulbs which weigh over a pound each!

The bulbs split into divisions for planting garlic.

Give Growing Garlic a Try

Back To Top

How to Plant Garlic to Vegetable Gardening

You Might Also like to Read:

"Get the Dirt!" on Vegetable Gardening! > > A FREE Vegetable Gardening Tips and Ideas Newsletter < < "Where to begin with my own vegetable garden? I need some help!" Should I just try planting some seeds in the ground? Is there more to vegetable gardening than meets the eye? How about a container garden? Get the answers, tips, ideas, and more by subscribing to our FREE "Get the Dirt" newsletter.

New! Comments