Garlic! (The Great Scape)

Alright, it's time to humor me (as if that isn't always the case...) I picked the scapes off one of my varieties of garlic today, and the other two will be ready in the next couple of days. In honor of this momentous event, I am writing my "how I grow garlic" blog. A couple of people in the RVB community have expressed some interest in this topic, so for those of you who care, here it is. For those of you who don't, I'll try to do something less, um, agricultural before too long. I hope to never do this again, unless I come up with some wild variation on my technique, or I start to grow some exotic varieties of garlic*.

*Is there really an "exotic" variety of garlic? Garlic is ubiquitous. To me it is like calling something like water or air exotic. It is far too important and central to life on earth to be cheapened by labels like "exotic". I apologize to garlic for even suggesting there might be something exotic about it.

For now, I will stick to the basics: I grow hardneck varieties called Georgian Crystal, Chesnok, and something that was once probably Romanian Red or something like it, but I lost track of the name and now I call it "Dave's Own Red". You're allowed to do this with garlic once you are reusing your own seed garlic, and you've done it for at least three years in succession in the same soil. I just made that rule up. Why, you may ask, do I grow hardneck? Because it is not finicky about soil, it grows in most conditions--hot, cold, dry, wet--and despite some reports to the contrary, it keeps pretty well. I've put up our garlic in July, and if stored in cool dark places, have run out in April before it sprouted or got soft. If you're considering growing your own garlic (note: DO IT!) don't be fooled by the hype of softneck. Most softneck varieties come from warmer climes than our own, while the hardnecks tend to originate in Russia and other unforgiving places.*

*Like Washington.

Anyway, hardneck is cool because it roasts really well, but it can't be braided like softnecks can. That's okay because garlic braids are kind of prissy.

Growing Garlic

Step 1:
After buying your seed garlic from a reputable company (like this, this, or this) WAIT UNTIL LATE OCTOBER OR EARLY NOVEMBER TO BEGIN THE PLANTING PROCESS!!! Then peel the papery outer skin off the bulbs. If you've bought more than one variety, you might want to make row markers so you can know which variety is which (unless you just want to name them for yourself later on, which I'll admit is very satisfying). Avoid messing with the harder, inner skin, which will protect the seed bulb through the long winter and into spring. If it is damaged, your bulbs will be more susceptible to rot.

Step 2:
Prepare your soil. I like to have beds about three feet wide, and about 25 feet long. I usually till my soil by hand, with an EZ Digger (aka Korean Hand Plow) duct taped to the end of a rake handle. I love the utility of this tool, and if you don't have one you should order it now...I'll wait... Seriously, it will become your favorite tool.

Often I will sow garlic in soil that has had some sort of cover crop growing on it, such as oats or buckwheat. That keeps the nitrogen in the soil, and since garlic is planted long after the first frost, you can usually just till the organic matter into the soil and then plant. Every couple of years I will add some compost and soil amendments (SulPoMag, bloodmeal, greensand, Menafee humates, etc.) but the key, according to a number of garlic famers I've spoken to, is to keep sowing it in the same soil year after year. Do not rotate garlic crops.

Step 3:
When have my three foot rows, I like to create three shallow furrows about 10" apart, the full length of each row. Then I just drop in the individual cloves every six inches or so.

From there, it's a simple matter of covering the bulbs with about two inches of soil, and tamping down the soil, and covering the rows with mulch. DO NOT SKIMP ON THIS STEP! The garlic cloves will begin to put out roots in the time between planting and solid frost. This will help it stabilize itself for spring, but the mulch will cut down on the amount of frost heaving the bulbs will go through.

Step 4:
Fuhgeddaboutit! This is my favorite step. It is what makes garlic such a gratifying crop to grow: your work is really mostly done, save for a little weeding in the spring. In the past, I raked the mulch off the beds as soon as the soil opened up in the spring. This year I found if I left it on, the garlic came up through the mulch, and the weeds didn't emerge nearly as badly as in the past.

Step 5:
Harvest. For me this has been happening in mid-to-late July, which seems to be earlier than some in the area. I have no idea why this is, and I'm not too worried. I just follow these two simple guidelines:
1) break off the scapes when they are big enough to snap off;
2) pull the garlic gently* from the ground when about 70% of the leaves have turned yellow.**


Breaking off the scapes allows the garlic to put its energy into storing energy in its bulbs, which makes for the bulbs being as big as they can be. The jury is still out as to whether this makes an appreciable difference in yield, but there is another good reason to harvest the scapes: they are yummy. I've had pickled garlic scapes that are to die for, and am still looking for a good recipe to make our own. If you allow the scapes to continue growing, eventually they will develop into a flower-like bundle of tiny garlic bulbs (bulbils) on the end of stalk. These can be planted, and will form one solitary bulb the following year, and then those bulbs can be planted and will yield full sized heads. It's a pretty cool process, and all along the way the scapes, bulbils and bulbs are edible. I would suggest against eating the foliage though. Pretty chewy.

*Pulling gently is advisable because it's no fun digging through the soil trying to find the broken-off head of garlic.

**If the leaves get too dry, the garlic won't keep well, because there won't be enough skin to protect it. If not enough of the leaves are yellow, the skin will be too thick, and the garlic--you guessed it--won't store well.

Step 6:
Storage. Hang up the freshly harvested garlic on a clothesline somewhere. After about two weeks, it will dry out, and the leaves will become dry and rustly. At this point you can brush the dirt off the bulbs, snip off the roots, and cut off the leaves and stalk about two inches above the bulb. Being hardneck, you will need a fairly sturdy set of clippers or scissors to do this.

Then, store it in a cool, dark place. A pantry will do just fine. And then, enjoy the fruits of your labor for the next eight months, when you will see the next year's crop just beginning to peek through the mulch.