Garlic

Ensure not to overwater garlic plants, especially in the weeks immediately before harvesting.

Most modern garlic does not produce viable seed; therefore, it is propagated by breaking apart a head into individual cloves.

Shortly before planting your garlic, carefully break the cloves apart into separate pieces (this process is known as ‘cracking’) Make sure that the section that was attached to the garlic basal plate (hard flat section at the base) for each one is still intact and not damaged. Make sure you break the garlic bulb apart no more than 24 hours before planting – the roots will form from the base, so it’s best to not let this dry out to ensure that roots set quickly.

Select the largest garlic cloves, and plant these as they will create the largest bulbs when grown.

There are a number of different strategies you can use for planting garlic, each will result in slightly different yields. You can plant garlic in double or single rows, or intensively plant with smaller distance between each plant – this will result in smaller bulbs.

Cover the planted garlic cloves with mulch to regulate soil moisture and temperature levels – however this is not recommended for areas where moisture levels are already high.

It is generally recommended that you remove the scape, which is a flowering stem that comes up from the centre of the leaves; most modern garlic does not produce viable seed, and so, in those cases the flower is most useful as an edible. The ideal time to harvest the scape is when it has curled around on itself, but before the 2nd portion straightens out. Removing the scape allows the plant to focus its energy on the bulb, instead of the bulbil that will form if the scape is allowed to grow.

The scape can be used in a wide variety of dishes, and lends a mild garlic flavour. The scape can also be pickled.

A very few varieties of hardneck garlic will produce true botanical seeds if the bulbils are removed soon after spathe break. This frees up space and nutrients for use by developing flowers. Suitable varieties tend to have came out of the former soviet union in recent decades, and are primarily in the purple stripe and marbled purple stripe groups, though seeds have also been obtained from cultivars in other groups. Male-sterility is common among garlic cultivars, so planting several varieties close together may allow pollen from fertile cultivars to pollinate flowers on male-sterile plants.

These plants have been known to grow well alongside Garlic so consider planting:

fruit trees, nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, etc), brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, kohlrabi, etc) carrots

These plants will not grow well with Garlic so avoid planting these within close proximity:

Alfalfa-Garlic and alfalfa both have problems with each other.¹
beans, peas, parsley

These problems, diseases and pests are known to affect Garlic plants:

Basal rot, white rot, downey mildew, Botrytis rot and penicillium decay are the major diseases garlic can encounter. Nematodes will also attack garlic root system.

• Bulb Mites
• Pea Leafminer
• Wheat Curl Mite

• Basal Rot

  Soil-borne pathogen that invades roots. Warm soil temperatures and high soil ...

• White Rot

• Rust - Puccinia Porri

• Downy mildew

The word Garlic is from the Old English gārlēac, which in turn is from gār (“spear”, in reference to the cloves) + lēac (“leek”) ³

Garlic is one of the oldest cultivated food plants – its use dates back about 6000 years and is used in a culinary sense in almost every culture in the world ²
China is the biggest producer of Garlic in the world. ²
Garlic has a long history of medicinal use.¹

Cultivated garlic, Common garlic, Garden garlic, Alho

Allium sativum L.

¹ Plants For A Future

² Food Reference-Garlic Trivia

³ Online Etymology Dictionary

⁴ ASPCA