Planting garlic: great, not late if you put it in the ground right now. Garlic is hardy (remember, it grows in Siberia)! Harsh weather conditions will stunt its growth and make it less resistant to insects and disease. If you want great garlic, you need to encourage it to be strong. It is all about the encouragement. The key is that you have to think like a garlic.
Garlic has long been considered a wonder herb. According to folklore, it is capable of curing everything from the common cold and flu to warding off the plague.
It’s hard to say if any of these claims are true, but one thing’s for sure: It tastes great in cooking; plus it’s one of the easiest crops to grow.
According to Ron Engeland, who many of us consider the Guru of Great Garlic (his book, “Growing Great Garlic. The Definitive Guide for Organic Gardeners and Small Farmers“), bulbs planted later, tend to be more plump, dense, heavy , and have better storage capabilities.
Some say the rule of thumb is to plant 4-6 weeks before the ground freezes. Others say plant any time from late September through mid-January, as long as the ground isn’t frozen. Philosophical Europeans go for the Winter Equinox.
It is traditional to plant garlic on the shortest day of the year. Whether this is for symbolic or practical reasons is unclear. Others say avoid the winter and wait ’til spring.
How to plant garlic? There are pros and cons to planting early or late. Early, the garlic gets a head start on the growth, resulting in larger bulbs at harvest. However, those tender shoots are much more susceptible to winter damage.
The answer is, “it depends”. Personally, my main objective when it comes to planting is to get garlic cloves in the ground before it starts raining. I have been known to be out there planting during a cold downpour, but it’s not my idea of a great time.
The garlic needs a period of cold to be able to form a bulb. Growers in California would not get that, although I understand they chill the cloves in a refrigerator type of place for several weeks before planting.
Garlic is grown from the individual cloves. Each clove will produce one plant with a single bulb – which may in turn contain up to twenty cloves.
Shortly before planting break the bulbs apart into cloves. This is called ‘cracking’. The cloves are attached to the basal plate, the plate that the roots grow from.
When you crack the bulb each clove should break away cleanly, leaving an intact ‘footprint’ on the basal plate. The root nodules begin growing from edge of the footprint.
It is very important to keep the clove intact while planting. If you separate the garlic cloves as close to planting time as possible, preferably within 24 hours, the root nodules won’t dry out and the garlic will be able to set roots quickly.
To plant, simply stick each clove about four inches apart in a furrow, around four inches under the soil. Don’t worry if they aren’t sitting upright; they will right themselves through the winter, as they grow roots and, in the late winter or spring, send green shoots upward.
Set aside the very small cloves to eat soon. Each large clove will produce a good sized bulb by the end of the growing season. The smallest cloves require just as much space, care and attention in the garden and produce significantly smaller bulbs.
Garlic will grow under a wide variety of soil conditions. It is said to prefer free draining loam with lots of organic matter.
Building up your soil with green manure cover crops as part of your normal crop rotation is good practice. We like to get all our amendments into the soil before planting. Compost and composted manure are popular choices. We use alfalfa meal and a small amount of ground fish bones.
Planting garlic: great, not late is the deal right now to anticipate the biggest bulbs ever.
Want to know more about garlic? Then, click here:
http://www.naturalhealth-solutions.net/healthy-eating/this-is-what-benefits-of-garlic-are-about#more-1387
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Yours truly, Polly – Organic Gardener
