This past week was the big garlic harvest here at Flying Blue Dog Farm where we grow 27 varieties of the tasty bulb. The luscious scent of garlic was in the air, the drying shed is full up and there is still more to harvest. The plumber from Whitson’s smelled it as soon as he got out of his truck and commented on it; of course he went home with some premium bulbs. Premium they were too. What a great year for garlic this has been, the garlic divas must have approved of my efforts. Of course I work hard at it and give it all that it wants and more because I love garlic, I am part Italian after all, it’s in my genes! But it doesn’t always turn out as nicely as it did this year.

Here’s what I did. Garlic is planted in the fall in our mild winter area. Anytime from the autumn equinox to November is best but you can still plant as late as February and get respectable although smaller bulbs. The area I planted in was amended with a lots of compost and trace minerals. I use a product called Azomite which is a combination of many different minerals. This all gets turned into the soil. Your goal is to provide a rich fluffy seed bed with excellent drainage. This is no small feat with some of the soils around here so you may want to consider raised beds. Just before we planted I added a complete organic fertilizer something that would encourage strong root formation, say something like a 5-10-10.

Next I chose the biggest fattest bulbs and separated them into cloves and chose only the biggest fattest of them to plant. The rest we eat. The cloves are planted about an inch or so deep and 6 inches apart. I want them to have plenty of room to grow without having to compete for nutrients with their neighbors. When all are planted we mulch with good 4 or so inches of straw and we are done. Seriously we are done for the winter. That’s one of the great things about planting garlic, and onion and shallots for that matter, once the work of preparing the bed and planting is done, so are you, well mostly anyway. The winter rains do all the watering and the garlic is doing its thing. First it will develop strong roots and then it sends up some shoots. The more roots and shoots you have before the real cold of winter sets in the bigger your potential bulbs will be.

For most of the winter your garlic will hang out looking like it isn’t doing much when in fact the roots are continuing to grow and strengthen. During this time the only thing you have to do is stay on top of weeding. Garlic does not compete well with weeds and mulching helps keep the weed population under control. Any weeds that do come up are really easy to pull because the mulch keeps the soil loose.

Once the days start to lengthen and the weather begins to warm, usually sometime around February it’s time to side dress with a little something. This year I chose to use pellet chicken manure. This stuff was easy to apply and it doesn’t smell like regular chicken manure. In years past I have foliar fed with a mixture of fish emulsion and kelp and had great results too. That’s it, that’s all you have to do except keep on top of the weeds and maybe water once or twice if the rain doesn’t come.

Harvesting is timed for when the lower leaves begin to die. Don’t wait until all the leaves are dead like you would with onions because the bulb wrappers will also be dead and the bulbs will begin to split. This means your garlic will not store as well and will be subject to pests and disease. Dig the bulbs up carefully, you don’t want to nick or bruise them in any way. They need to be cured or dried in a cool place out of direct sun. Curing usually takes 2-4 weeks after which they can be braided or trimmed for storage. We use mesh onion sacks and store them in a cool room in the house. Don’t forget to separate out and save the largest bulbs for the coming year’s seed stock.

Start getting ready now because October is right around the bend!