Garlic Goes In the Ground This Month

I waited until spring to plant garlic my first year. Just didn’t know. Planted a whole pound of seed garlic in April, watered it faithfully, and harvested the saddest little marbles you’ve ever seen in July. My neighbor watched me dig them up from across the fence and didn’t say anything. Just slowly went back inside.

Garlic needs cold to develop properly. It goes in the ground in fall, spends the winter doing its thing underground, and comes out as actual garlic in late June or July. If you’re in the Pacific Northwest, October is your window. We’ve still got decent soil temps and the rains are just starting to cooperate. This is the move.

What Kind to Get

There are two main types: hardneck and softneck. Around here I plant hardneck. Specifically Inchelium Red or Music, depending on what the local nursery has in stock. Hardneck varieties do better in our cooler winters and honestly taste better, which is the whole point.

I buy my seed garlic from Sky Nursery in Shoreline or Swansons, usually around $6.99 to $9.50 for a quarter pound depending on the variety. One head gives you roughly 8 to 12 cloves to plant. You do the math. Or don’t. It’s a lot of garlic for not a lot of money.

Don’t plant garlic from the grocery store. I’ve tried it. It usually works okay but most of it is treated or is a softneck variety bred for shelf life, not flavor. Save the grocery garlic for pasta and buy actual seed garlic once. You’ll feel fancy for about eleven dollars.

The Setup

Garlic wants loose, well-drained soil with decent fertility. I work in about an inch of compost before planting because my raised beds are mostly clay-adjacent after years of neglect. Full sun is ideal but garlic will tolerate partial shade and still perform reasonably well. This is Redmond. We work with what we’ve got.

Break your heads into individual cloves right before planting. Don’t do it days ahead. I tried that once and half of them dried out weirdly. Keep the papery skin on each clove.

Plant them pointy side up, flat side down, about 2 inches deep and 6 inches apart. If you’re doing rows, give them 12 inches between rows. I plant in a grid in my raised beds because I’m trying to squeeze every inch out of a 4×8 and I have no shame about that.

After They Go In

Mulch. Probably the most important step after actually planting them. A 3 to 4 inch layer of straw or shredded leaves keeps the soil from heaving during freeze-thaw cycles, holds moisture, and breaks down into organic matter by spring. I use whatever leaves have fallen in the yard, which is free, which you already knew I was going to say.

Sprouts will poke up before winter, sometimes within two or three weeks. Don’t panic. They’ll stop when temps drop and wait it out. They know what they’re doing better than I do, apparently.

Watering is basically a non-issue from November through February in Redmond. The rain handles it. If we get a dry stretch in spring, that’s when I check in. Garlic doesn’t want to sit in soggy soil but our raised beds drain well enough that I’ve never had a rot problem.

One Thing to Watch For

In late spring, hardneck garlic sends up a curly green shoot called a scape. Cut it off. Seriously, snap it right at the base when it makes one full curl. This redirects energy into the bulb instead of into flowering and you get bigger heads at harvest. Also the scapes are edible and taste like mild garlic. Sauté them in butter, put them in eggs, whatever. They’re good and the price is right.

I forgot to cut them for the first two years. My harvest was fine but smaller than it should have been. The scapes just sat there flowering while I admired them like an idiot. Don’t be me.

When to Harvest

Around late June to mid July, when the lower leaves start browning off. Usually about half the leaves are still green when it’s ready. I use a garden fork to loosen the soil around each plant rather than pulling straight up. Learned that the hard way when I snapped a whole head off at the neck and had to use it immediately.

Cure them in a dry shaded spot with airflow for three to four weeks before storage. Garage works great if it doesn’t smell like gasoline. Mine smells like gasoline.

Anyway. Point is: garlic goes in October. The window is open right now and it closes faster than you’d think. It’s honestly one of the lowest-effort things you can grow in this climate. You plant it, mulch it, mostly forget about it, and six months later you’ve got garlic.

I’m going to go ahead and say it: this crop is a real clover way to spend an afternoon. (I’m not sorry.)

Photo by Sabine Ojeil on Unsplash