Growing Garlic

Latest Update 2nd June 2020.

Garlic

• I keep the best of my previous years crop to provide cloves for the new season.
• I can fit 30 cloves in 2 allocated rows and they produced plenty for our needs.
• Blackfly (aphids) are a persistent problem, and vigilance is needed to ensure they don't get established and cause significant damage to the crop.
• Garlic is harvested as soon as leaf tips turn yellow, and dried in bunches hanging freely from rafters in a shed or garage.  They will store like this for 9 months, but start to send out new shoots in winter.
• To avoid losing part of your crop, its worth freezing some of them before they reach this stage.  No special preparation is necessary and you can store them with stalks removed in resealable plastic bags in the freezer.  
• They are extremely nutritious and add great flavour to soups and casseroles, and they taste great when roasted with other vegetables. 

Description

• Variety:                                                    Flinders Island Purple, Elephant.
• Family group:                                           Allioideae.  
• Crop rotation group:                                  Light Feeders.
• Garden bed type:                                      Garden Ecobed.
• Minimum sun per day:                              4 hours.
• Plant spacings (centres x rows)                 100 x 100mm.
• Planting depth:                                         75 mm. 
• Weeks to harvest:                                    32 weeks.
• Good companions.                                   Rose. apple. pear. peach. cucumber. pea.
• Climate:                                                   Warm temperate
• Geography:                                              Southern hemisphere.

Nutrition.

• This food is very low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium. 
• It is a good source of calcium, phosphorus and selenium, and a very good source of vitamin C, vitamin B6 and manganese. 
• More from nutrition data.self.com.

Maintain Healthy Plants

• This blogpage explains how I maintain healthy plants.  It describes how soil is prepared prior to planting, how to regulate the sun's intensity and how to help protect and feed plants through their leaves.

Propagate Plants Efficiently

•  This blogpage explains how I propagate seeds in a purpose built propagator.

Propagation Plan 2020.

• This blogpage tells you when to sow seeds.

Services Plan 2020.

• This blogpage tells you when to make compost and plan other garden/household related activities.

Growing Instructions.

• A narrow trench is made in the prepared bed by moving the mulch and compost to each side exposing the soil.
• The trench is then filled with more fresh homemade compost and the cloves sown (pointed end facing upwards) directly into the compost 3 times as deep as they are long using a large dibber.  The trench is watered generously with captured rainwater, and the soil covered with mulch once the young seedlings are more than 100mm tall.
• To protect the seeds from digging birds, exclusion netting is put in place until the plants are big enough to survive the attention.  This digging activity reduces as winter approaches.

Harvesting and Storage.

• Harvest the garlic in October or when leaf tips begin to yellow.  Choose a warm sunny day and lift them from the soil carefully.
• Leave them to dry for a short time after brushing off any soil.  Hang them in a cool dark place until required in the kitchen.
• Retain a few of your best cloves for planting the following year.

Organic Pest Control.

• Garlic plants, like most vegetables, are vulnerable to attack from certain pests in my garden.  My blog on "Controlling Garden Pests" explains a little about these pests and what to do to protect plants from them.  For details click on the appropriate link below.
• Aphids (blackfly).
• Slugs and snails.