Growing Garlic In Your Backyard
I have always found Garlic as a mystical plant since my childhood. Its growth as a plant, smell, and the wonderful taste has always left me wondering. Naturally, as an adult, I now grow my own garlic. For now, I have a small patch, but in years to come my garlic patch will be something to behold. Well, at least all the fleas will jump off my dog when he follows me through the garlic patch two years from now.
All humor aside, this is an important endeavor of mine. I enjoy having garlic in my food, and as a person of sustainable nature, I want to grow my own garlic. Moreover, I am not going to buy any garlic for bulb stock. Thats right, I purchased two garlic bulbs this year, and from this point forward all my garlic will be from a line of progression from these two garlic bulbs. Every year, I will plant, harvest, consume a large portion, and then replant the remaining portion during the following planting season.
I am not going to touch on the issue of different garlic types. Trust me, there is a considerable wide array of different types. Plus, you will want to chose one that fits your needs. Making this chose, you will need to take into account, your growing climate, hard or soft top, and most importantly taste.
Starting out, garlic is very much different then other home grown foods. For one, planting garlic is very much different. Not in how you place it in the ground, but when. In general, garlic is planted before winter, but just in time for the garlic to take root, and build a small root system. The garlic will not show its self above ground at this point, which is the desired result. However, there is a key follow-up step. You must mulch on top of the garlic bed. You can use any mulching material you have on hand. Just place several inches, about three or four, and by spring the mulch will be reduced down to about one inch, which is the desired depth.
The procedure for placing garlic in the ground in just like any other bulb, root end down. However, when you order your garlic bulbs or go to replant from last years stock, you just simply take the garlic bulb and carefully brake it apart into cloves, much like preparing the garlic for cooking apart from peeling the dried rapper off. The larger cloves are planted and the smallest is used for your own consumption.
You plant during fall leading into winter, then the following summer around June or July you will be harvesting, which brings us to drying and storage. When the garlic is ready for harvesting, you will pull it tops and all from the ground. Then in bunches or twenty or so bound together, you will hang it to dry, which can take several weeks depending on the weather. After drying has occurred, to the consistency found in your grocery store, its time for storage. Personally, I will braid mine and hang them in the top of my dry storage pantry. However, my garlic that will be replanted will be stored in paper bags in the bottom of my pantry.
In the end, I will have plenty of garlic for my needs, plus garlic for friends and family, and maybe some for sale.
This article was written by Citizen Action, who is an ordinary American citizen in search of a sustainable life style. He writes on many different subjects from gardening to working with compost.
