December 29, 2019

After all these years of growing garlic, I still get excited when the first bud comes through the soil and begins reaching for the winter sunlight. I always look forward to having bulbs and scapes, as well as growing the garlic itself.

It's fun to start out with but a handful of cloves and finish with bundles of bulbs hanging from the rafters. It’s a process that involves all four seasons - spring for growth, summer for the scapes and bulbs, late summer and fall for drying, and finally, winter for separating and planting. I have always liked how garlic comes full circle.

From the time the first bud appears until the plant is harvested, it’s really hard to know how the bulb will be – small with thin cloves or huge and fleshy. Many times, the success of the stalks and leaves do not tell the story, so it's a wait and see, although if ones follows a few common “how to’s”, the anticipation is usually rewarded.

Garlic is simple. It doesn’t like to have wet feet- neither too much water or a soil that is slow to drain, or a bit of both. Garlic doesn’t like competition – it needs to be spaced properly when planted and kept weeded. It needs fertilized, which is especially important in the spring when it comes out of the winter. When the scapes begin to form, they need to be removed before the plant transfers it energy to the flower. By removing the scapes, the energy is redirected back to the bulb.

The best part of growing garlic is that the entire plant can be used. We are all familiar with using garlic cloves, which is why we grow it in the first place. Scapes – my favorite - which have a tangy garlic taste, can be eaten alone, fried, baked, chopped, added to any dish, made into pesto, etc. The leaves and stalks, when dried, can be fed to wildlife and livestock. We feed these to our goats, who go crazy for them. Some goat people swear garlic and the garlic plant are a natural wormer. The bottom line is, there is nothing wasted for the effort of growing garlic.

It was just a few weeks ago that I separated out the cloves from a few of last summer’s bulbs and planted them in the hoop house. It didn’t take long for the magic to begin!