Photo by Jade Craven, shared via
Flickr.
Garlic should be planted in the fall. Your definition of fall might be different from mine (we are already getting snow) but regardless, you probably need to go buy some garlic and stick it in the ground sometimes soon.
A wonderful food and gardening writer lives here in Missoula, and he wrote about garlic last October
in his column. Take it away, Ari Levaux:
Now is indeed the time to plant garlic - the sooner the better, with the freezing of the ground serving as your final deadline. Garlic planted in fall will establish roots and then go dormant for the winter. Come spring, it’s off to the races. Your garlic will be tall and majestic while your neighbors are still staring at the ground waiting for their radish seeds to sprout.
After you’ve prepared a good bed of soil, gently break apart the heads garlic you intend to plant into individual cloves. Leave the skin on. If you don’t have seed garlic, buy local garlic at the store or farmers market and plant that. If it’s local, then it’s likely a variety that will grow well in your area. Just remember to plant garlic that you like, since what you grow will bear a strong resemblance to it.
The only things I would add to his simple and excellent description would be that garlic likes rich soil (so add some compost or a bit of manure) and the base of each clove should rest gently on the soil about four inches deep here in Montana, or shallower in climates with warmer winters (as few as 2 inches in the deep South). A thick top layer of straw helps keep weeds down over the early springtime, and if you plant hardneck garlic breeds then you'll also have tasty green garlic scapes to saute over your springtime spinach. Mmmm...
This year I'm planting about five times my normal quantity of garlic - mostly because we have expanded our garden beds and I finally have the room to do so. With all that space, I'm also planting six different varieties of garlic. Should be fun next summer to taste-test them all!
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