I have learnt a number of useful hints and growing tips for garlic. This has been over the last two years and trying four different garlic varieties.

  1. Garlic is a colder weather crop.
  2.  Plant it from the Autumn equinox (22 March in the southern hemisphere) through to early Spring
  3. The warmer the climate the earlier you can plant.
  4. There are different varieties of garlic suitable for colder areas and warmer areas
  5. Saving your best garlic bulbs for replanting improves your results over time. You develop your garlic to be acclimatised to your area.
  6. Cloves of garlic from the same bulb can take anywhere from four days to 2 months to sprout, even if planted on the same day.

 

Garlic growing hints and tips

Although this Elephant Garlic clove was planted at the same time as the others it took 4 weeks longer to sprout

I purchase 5 cloves of elephant garlic, three took about 17 days to sprout, another appeared about 24 days after planting and this one just appeared, 48 days after planting.

In garlic growing hints and tips some garlic cloves take longer than others to sprout

Two cloves of Silverskin Garlic finally poked through after 48 days

Winterising Garlic (maybe suitable for garlic growing hints and tips)

There are a lot of claims that in warmer locations, if you put your garlic in the fridge for 4 – 6 weeks before planting it will improve the quality of your garlic. I have still to find out if this “winterising” of the garlic before planting is of benefit or not.

Next year, I will winterise half of a bulb and store the other half normally. I hang it in the shed in a hessian bag. When I plant I will mark them and see how the harvest goes.

There are other posts on garlic Garlic Update and Planting Garlic – Four Varieties

If you have any garlic growing hints and tips, help me out and add them in the comments.

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