Today's video we're going to revisit a crop that I tried and failed to grow last
year. And that would be garlic.
Kevin Espiritu here from Epic Gardening where it's my goal to help you grow
green thumb, including myself.
And let's talk just for a moment before we get into the meat of the video.
Why did my garlic fail last year?
And why is this part two of garlic care more than one season from the last
one? Well, it's because at the old Epic Garden, which many of you, OG followers,
remember, there were a lot of different issues that were going on there.
I had a skunk dig up my garlic three times.
You're talking about a plant that grows for at least 120
days in the spring, maybe 220 days if you plant it in the fall.
If you have something, dig that up, you're not long for this world.
And neither are your garlic bulbs.
I had a skunk dig it up three different times in my old garden.
So this one behind me here, nothing's dug it up.
We're past the point that I got to in the last garlic grow.
So we're here to talk today about garlic care from after the cloves
sprouts, up until the point where scapes start to form.
If you're growing hard neck,
or you need to think about harvesting and storing and using that garlic.
So it's that middle part.
So cultivate that like button and I will personally bless you with a botanical
enchantment for your garlic. So it will become a 10% larger and bulbs size?
We want big bulbs...and let's get into the video.
So if you're familiar with the part one video,
you'll know that the way I've planted this second crop of garlic looks quite
different than the first. The first was in a raised bed.
This one of course is in the ground. Why? First of all, I have the space here.
That was one of the big reasons for moving to the Epic Homestead is I actually
have space to grow. But number two,
I wanted to experiment with a deeper mulch and a deeper burial method that I
felt might work better in the ground. So what I did,
I have 10 varieties of garlic. Nine are hardneck. One is softneck.
Now in a warm zone, you typically do want to grow a softneck garlic.
They're more suited and they perform better.
So why am I growing nine hardneck varieties? Number one,
I want to taste garlic scapes. I want to grow garlic scapes.
That's a big reason for me. It's a delicacy and I really want to have that.
Number two, I just want to experiment, see if I can do it,
but what did I do to mitigate against some of the problems you might run into
growing hardneck? Well,
what I did is I kept all those clothes in the fridge for about three months or
so. And then I buried them about six inches deep,
covered that with two inches of mushroom compost as sort of a nice organic
top-dress mulch. And then another four inches of straw.
The reason why is because with garlic,
you want to keep the soil temperatures low until that bulbing process starts
here in San Diego Zone 10b the soil temperatures can get pretty warm.
I threw a soil thermometer in the ground over there just to check it's about
maybe eight inches down or so. And we're looking at about 60 degrees Fahrenheit,
15 and a half Celsius. So I know that this mulching,
I would call it like a double mulch and a deep bur method seems to be working
pretty well for my climate,
but we need to get into what you do at this point of their growth.
As with anything in the garden. observation is really the key.
So let's just take a look really quickly here.
So you've got a nice stalk coming out. There's the newest growth right here.
Here's some of the older leaves. You are seeing a tiny bit of yellowing here,
but I don't think it's anything to be concerned about. A nice vibrant green.
And we have maybe one, two, three, four, five, six, seven leaves.
We're still in the leaf phase where it's putting out a ton of leaves to get
energy, to form the bulb.
Let's talk watering for your garlic while it's still putting out a ton of leafy
growth. And then after that, I'll show you a cool way that I like to fertilize,
but I'm just gonna use this little fan attachment here on my Hoselink.
As we talk about this, the thing about garlic is it's a shallow rooted plant.
You have your bulb. First of all, you have your clove, then you have your bulb,
right? And as soon as that bulb starts to form,
when you pull a garlic out of the ground,
you know that the roots maybe go to here or so maybe a couple inches.
And so that means that if the water is not present in that very shallow root
zone during this all-important growth phase, you're in a pretty bad spot.
It's not going to develop much further. It's not going to grow much further,
no matter how much light it gets, no matter how much fertilizer it gets.
What's really nice about this particular method, at least so far for me,
is that I've buried it so deep that I really don't have to water extremely
frequently. I've got it about five inches, six inches deep. And then again,
I have multiple layers of mulch on top. I've got the straw,
which not only reflects heat because it's light colored,
but also it's a really good insulator. And so it keeps the soil nice and cool.
That said, of course, you still do have to water it. Now,
the thing about when to water, everyone asks this question in the garden.
When do I water? How often do I water?
The real answer is when the plant needs it.
I do have a full video on watering mistakes that you might be making.
You need to know what the plant wants,
the specific plant you're growing in this case. Garlic know how the plant grows.
If you know, it has a shallow root system, of course,
that's going to change the way that you approach both the watering and the
planting of the plant. Now, another thing I'll say specifically, again,
if you are in this warmer zone or you planted your garlic in the spring and not
the fall,
I would say you probably might want to consider some sort of shade cloth.
So pretty soon when I'm going to do is I'm going to erect a couple of little
stakes in the corners here, and we'll lay some 50% shade cloth over the top.
50% means half the sunlight should be cut.
Now that does hamper a little bit of the photosynthesis, but it's a, trade-off,
I'd rather have a little bit less light to prevent the heat buildup on the soil.
And then of course,
down in the bulb zone where it's really not going to like that until it starts
to bulb up. So we're just about done watering here.
I could probably go a little harder if you're unfamiliar about how to actually
know if you're finished watering, just dig down in the soil,
build a familiarity and you'll get to it. But now let's talk about fertilizing.
So how do you actually fertilize your garlic effectively?
Especially if you've planted a ton of it. Like I have, well,
you can just sprinkle granular fertilizer around and then water it in every so
often. And eventually it will break down.
I personally have been really preferential to using a liquid fertilizer of which
I have right here. This is a Espoma Organic's liquid, all purpose.
So it's a two two two and it is bioavailable right away because it's water
soluble. So a liquid can be really good for that,
but how do I actually apply this? Do I dilute it in water? And then dah, dah,
dah, whatever. No, you do this.
This is what I've really become a fan of here at the Epic Homestead.
Fertigation so irrigation plus fertilizing fertigation.
Now what you'll do here is you'll hook this to a hose.
So I'll do it for you right now. This says insecticide sprayer.
Don't worry about that. I'm using it for fertilizer.
So what you do give this a nice,
good shake and this fills up to about five gallons or
so.
So what I'm going to do is the back of this says use about one dose per gallon,
maybe two doses per gallon. I'm going to go on the lighter side.
So I'll use one. So I'm just going to go one. So that was one gallon worth.
It'll refill two gallons worth three, four,
and I've got five. Okay.
So that's what I'm putting in.
And then I have to fill this up because what we're doing here is we're using
this as a siphon.
We're going to hook it into this hose system and then use it to spray,
which you'll see in a second. So it's really handy.
So now all I want to do is just pop this in.
We'll fill it up to five and that seems like it's not a lot,
but it is. It's exactly what we want to do. So there we go. We've got enough,
let's plug it in and let's water. So check it out.
We have our sprayer all connected,
and this is why I watered beforehand because now it's way more likely to get
all the way down there because the water has sort of permeated and wet the
initial surface.
And so all I'm doing is just coming in and
fertigating baby!
Such a satisfying thing when you can apply a dilute fertilizer to a large space
effectively. And we're actually hitting the plant leaves a little bit.
I'm not saying it's a perfect foliar spray,
but I'm not saying that it's not either. I mean, it will do something right.
And so now, as soon as this runs down to here,
I'll know I've applied about five gallons worth of lightly fertilized water to
my garlic. And we're in a good spot.
Two more points on fertilizing before we move on to some problems you might run
into. Number one,
you really want to cut out the fertilizing as you start to see bulb formation,
but how do you know? Right? Because the bulbs form under the ground,
you want to look for the stock to start to really thicken up a decent amount of
leaf growth on top. That will be your cue to cut fertilizing completely.
Just keep it well,
watered and manage some of the issues that we'll talk about in a second.
And as far as frequency goes, I would say maybe three,
four times throughout the season up until right before that bulb starts to form
is probably a good idea. Again, you're trying to get those leaves really,
really nice and bushy, nice and healthy.
So it can send all that energy down into the bulb.
But now let's talk about some problems you might run into with garlic.
Number one, being weeding. You want to make sure and keep your patch,
whether it's in a raised bed or a container, whatever clear of weeds.
So the mulch is doing a good job over there,
but I still see some Bermuda grass and some annoying stuff pop in.
I want to make sure and clear that out because it's not a good competitor plant.
Garlic likes to be left alone and likes to be babied.
It's kind of like that movie Wall-E where us humans.
We want like everything thrown in our face and become nice and fat and happy.
That's what you want to do to your garlic.
Treat your garlic like the human beings in Wall-E.
Keep them clear of anything that might annoy them.
Another thing that might happen is you might run into some disease.
The ones that typically happen is garlic rust. That is a fungal disease.
You might just have to cut it away.
You could maybe hit it with an organic copper fungicide,
but generally by the time it's there, it's there.
So you can cut that leaf off the bulb itself won't even be affected at all.
You can eat the bulb. The bulb might be smaller because the leaves are dying,
but it's not a big deal. You may also run into powdery mildew,
but that's going to be,
if the conditions are right late summer is a perfect time for powdery mildew to
show up overcast spring days, perfect time for powdery mildew to show up.
So keep an eye on it. Maybe it keeps circulation of air high,
that kind of thing. But again, powdery, mildew just happens in the garden.
You can't do everything in your power to prevent it from a pest perspective,
there's some thrips and mites and stuff. But generally speaking,
a lot of stuff doesn't really like to be around garlic.
So I don't think that's going to be a huge issue for you.
Garlic is one of those crops that you just get an immense sense of
accomplishment when you harvest it. Because number one, it's a long season crop.
A lot of things can go wrong.
You guys know the skunk decimated my crop at the old Epic Garden.
There's no way that's happening this time. I will camp out here.
I will send blessings up to the gardening gods and I will put a camera up if
need be. This is my baby.
I am a single father of 110 garlic over here. So there you go.
That's what I wanted to show you guys,
as far as this part of garlic care in part three, which will be coming up,
we'll talk about the garlic scapes. We'll talk about when to harvest,
how to harvest, how to dry and use and cure and all that kind of stuff.
So subscribe if you want to hear that good luck in the garden,
keep your garlic bulbs big...and keep on growing.