Before you plant, you’ll want to take care of a few housekeeping items.
If you haven’t already, you’ll want to prep your planting space. This is ideally done one month prior to planting.
First: inspect your garlic bulbs as soon as you get them in the mail. Make sure there are no signs of mold and that the bulbs and the cloves are generally healthy looking. Discard any that have mold or look questionable.
Don’t break your garlic bulbs apart until you’re close to planting time! Garlic cloves should be planted within 1-2 weeks after separating the bulb into individual cloves. If the bulb looks good, I’ll wait to separate into cloves until right before I put them in a liquid kelp soak.
Second: Prepare your liquid kelp soak
Separating Into Individual Cloves
Gently break the bulb apart into individual cloves, keeping the basal plate (bottom of bulb) intact and the papery skins ON the individual cloves. As tempting as it may be to pull these guys off, don’t! The papery skin helps prevent the garlic cloves from rotting in the ground.
Gently separate cloves from each other, keeping the base of the cloves intact. This is where the roots grow from.
Some of the cloves will be bigger than others. Separate them by size, keeping the larger ones for planting. Smaller cloves can be planted as well, but will most likely produce smaller bulbs come harvest time.
If you’ve got the space, plant them all, but if you’re tight on space, plant the larger ones and keep the smaller ones for fresh cooking or plant them close together in the garden and harvest them for garlic greens.
The bigger the clove you plant, the bigger the future bulb will be!
Prior to Planting- Liquid Kelp Soak
Liquid kelp, baking soda, and water is all you need for this soak. The liquid kelp gives the cloves a little boost of extra nutrients before it goes into the soil and the baking soda can help kill off any bacteria that may be present on your cloves.
Prepare the soak and let your cloves sit in it for up to 24 hours before planting.
When they’re done soaking, strain the cloves, and plant!
How to Plant
When you go to plant your cloves, make sure you’re planting with the pointy side up. Roots will grow from the bottom of the clove and greens will come out of the pointy top.
Plant the garlic in slightly moist soil in the fall. I like to give ours a little water before planting time, but not too much!
Plant at least two weeks before your first fall frost to give your garlic time to establish.
Cloves should be planted 1-2 inches deep (measuring from the top of the clove.) If you’re in a colder climate, plant 2-4 inches deep. Space the cloves 4-6 inches apart depending on the variety and how large the bulbs will get.
Plant in rows that are 12-18 inches apart. We space our rows 12 inches apart so we can fit more in our smaller urban garden space. Having well defined rows makes for easy weeding, watering, and feeding.
If you’re planting elephant garlic, double the spacing between cloves. The distance in between rows can remain the same.
Place a layer of mulch on top of the cloves after planting. If you’re in a colder climate, you can put up to 8 inches of mulch to keep the garlic cozy over winter. Leaves, compost, or straw are great mulches for garlic.
Follow Up
Check on your garlic in about 2-4 weeks to make sure it’s germinating well. You can dig up the cloves to make sure roots are forming and greens are starting to poke through. If you see greens above the soil, you don’t have to dig them up to check on them, they germinated!
Happy planting!
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