How to Grow Garlic: The Fall Crop Most Gardeners Skip
Most gardeners put their beds to sleep in the fall. Garlic is the reason not to. You plant it in autumn, it sits quietly through winter, and you harvest it the following summer. It grows in nearly every part of the country, takes up little space, and asks for very little attention along the way. If you've never grown a fall crop, this is the one to start with.
Florabella by Season
| Season | What To Do | How Florabella Applies |
|---|---|---|
| Fall | Prepare the bed and plant individual cloves a few weeks before the ground freezes, then mulch. | Work Flora Bella Bio Trace into the bed at planting so the trace minerals for plants are in place while the cloves put down roots. |
| Winter | Leave the mulch in place and let the cold do its work. Garlic needs a cold period to form good bulbs. | Nothing to add. The Bio Trace you worked in at planting stays in the soil through winter. |
| Spring | Pull mulch back as shoots grow, water steadily, keep weeds out, and snap off scapes on hardneck varieties. | Spring leaf growth is the growth phase Bio Trace is built for, and every leaf the plant grows now adds to the size of the bulb. |
| Summer | Stop watering as the leaves begin to brown, harvest, and cure the bulbs for a few weeks. | Save your biggest bulbs to plant again in fall, and work Bio Trace into the bed before they go back in. |
Why Garlic Works Almost Anywhere
Garlic comes in two broad types. Hardneck garlic handles cold winters well, produces fewer but larger cloves, and sends up a curly flower stalk called a scape in late spring. Softneck garlic suits milder climates, stores longer, and is the kind you usually find braided. Between the two, there's a garlic for nearly every growing zone: hardneck where winters are cold, softneck where they're mild.
Start With Good Seed Garlic
Plant cloves from garlic sold for planting by a nursery or seed supplier, ideally a variety suited to your region. Grocery store garlic is often grown for a different climate and is sometimes treated to keep it from sprouting, so it's an unreliable start.
Prepare the Soil
Garlic wants full sun and loose, well-drained soil. Bulbs sitting in soggy ground over winter tend to rot. Work in compost, aim for a pH of about 6.0 to 7.0, and add Flora Bella Bio Trace, the standard everyday amendment for the growth phase. Garlic spends most of its life building roots and leaves, and that is the work Bio Trace supports.
Flora Bella Bio Trace
Granular trace minerals for plants, worked in at fall planting for the whole garlic cycle.
Shop Bio Trace →
Plant in the Fall
Break the bulb into individual cloves just before planting, leaving the papery skin on each one. Set the cloves pointed end up, about two inches deep and six inches apart, in rows about a foot apart. Timing matters more than precision. Plant a few weeks before your ground freezes so the cloves can root before winter, but not so early that they send up a lot of top growth in the fall.
Mulch and Wait
Cover the bed with several inches of straw or shredded leaves after planting. Mulch keeps the soil from heaving during freeze-thaw cycles, holds moisture, and keeps weeds down in spring. Garlic may poke up a few green shoots before winter. That's normal and won't hurt the crop.
Spring Care
When growth picks up in spring, pull the mulch back slightly from the shoots and keep the bed weeded, since garlic competes poorly with weeds. Give it about an inch of water a week while the leaves are growing. Each leaf corresponds to a layer of wrapper around the bulb, so a strong leafy plant means a bigger bulb. On hardneck varieties, snap off the scapes once they curl. That sends the plant's energy back into the bulb, and the scapes themselves are good to eat.
A Note on Microdust and YieldBoost
You won't see Flora Bella Microdust or YieldBoost recommended here, and that's on purpose. Both are aimed at flowering and fruiting, and garlic is grown for its bulb, not its flowers or fruit. Removing the scapes actually keeps the plant from flowering at all. For garlic, Bio Trace covers the whole cycle, from fall planting through spring leaf growth.
Harvest and Cure
Stop watering a week or two before harvest. Garlic is ready in early to mid summer, when the lower leaves have turned brown but several upper leaves are still green. Loosen the soil with a fork and lift the bulbs instead of pulling them by the stem. Brush off loose soil, but don't wash them. Hang or spread them somewhere dry, shaded, and airy for two to four weeks to cure, then trim the roots and stems and store them somewhere cool and dry.
Save Your Best for Next Fall
Set aside your largest, healthiest bulbs to replant. Each clove you plant grows into a new bulb, and choosing the best of every harvest gradually gives you garlic adapted to your own garden. Work Bio Trace into the bed before they go back in the ground, and the cycle starts again.
Shop Flora Bella
- Flora Bella Bio Trace — 5 lbs: the standard amendment for fall planting and spring growth
- Flora Bella Bio Trace — 2 lbs: the same amendment in a smaller bag, enough for a garlic bed