- In this video,
I'm gonna show you how to grow a ton of garlic,
the easy way.
So there are three things you must know,
before you grow garlic.
Garlic is actually an overall term for three categories,
hardneck garlic, softneck garlic, and also, elephant garlic.
Garlic is a very hardy crop
that needs little attention, after planting.
And the third thing is something I learned this year,
which is a fantastic way to enjoy
the green part of the garlic,
and I'll explain that a little later on.
The ideal time to plant your garlic cloves,
which I'm currently separating here,
is between mid-October to mid-December,
any earlier and you risk potentially losing your plants
over a really cold winter,
cause there's too much develop growth,
and any later, and you also risk your bulbs
under developing.
My personal goal is to get my garlic in before December.
Now, there's a huge choice between different varieties
of garlic that you want to grow.
But the first thing you have to understand
is the differences between the three categories
of garlic that I mentioned earlier.
So firstly, elephant garlic, which is a fantastic name,
is treated more as a perennial crop,
and these are massive cloves,
and because they're a little bit more niche,
those aren't going to be included in this video.
Hardneck garlic tends to have larger cloves,
and are said to be tastier than softneck.
However, the bulbs don't last as long as softneck,
and softneck, even though their cloves are smaller,
they tend to have more in a bulb.
Now, in terms of hardiness, if you live in a cold climate,
hardneck varieties are better suited to cooler climates.
Whereas softneck is better suited
if you live in a warmer climate.
For me, in kind of zone eight,
I will actually very happily grow both hardneck
and softneck.
Unlike softneck varieties,
hardneck garlic also create garlic scapes.
These are the beautiful, delicious,
flowering stems that you want to cut off
before they flower.
They appear in early summer, just cut them off,
eat them, enjoy them.
You want to make sure that the plant is focusing
as much energy as possible down into the bulb development.
Earlier this season, this bed was growing sweet peas
and spaghetti squash.
So I've given it a light rake
and I covered it with a two to three centimeters,
so roughly an inch layer, of compost,
and I've raked it over. Nice and ready.
And the great news about garlic
is that it is very productive.
So you can plant these really close together,
roughly 7 to 10 centimeters between each clove,
which is three to four inches.
The actual planting of garlic is easy.
I used to use quite a large stick like this,
and I stick it down around five to six centimeters
or a couple of inches deep.
And then, using the bottom, wider base size
that's going down, this pointy bit, is pointing up,
and just going to stick it in the hole,
push it down firmly, and move on to the next one.
Now through the magic of maths,
you can actually increase the amount of garlic that you grow
using one really simple planting trick.
Instead of doing it in perfectly straight rows,
and lines and blocks,
what you want to do is plant using a pattern
called a diagonal offset.
You can see on the diagram that is on the screen,
you can actually fit in a lot more plants in the same area.
And what that means for small spaces in particular
is that you're making full use of every square inch
of ground that is available,
to also make sure that you have plenty of space
to grow the other crops as well.
And that's it, the bed behind me is planted,
and garlic is one of those magical crops
that you simply forget about
for the most part of eight months,
and then suddenly you've got a harvest.
Now of course, there might be a little bit of weeding to do,
but that is easily tackled with a hand hoe
or an oscillating hoe.
If you are a bit unlucky,
you might come across something called "white rot"
which can affect the Allium family.
Now, if you do get this,
the simple way to prevent an infect in future years
is to not grow garlic in that same place
for another three to four years at least,
and actually spread out your garlic planting.
So instead of planting all of your garlic in one block,
spread it out to two or three different planting locations
around the garden,
just to help increase the chances of a great crop.
Another thing that you may come up against
when growing garlic that also affects the Allium family,
for example, these leeks, is a disease called rust.
This is a far less of an issue though.
All you need to do is remove the worst affected leaves
and when it comes to harvesting the garlic,
just strip off the outer layer and they'll be fine.
Usually, rust actually clears itself up
as long as you look after the soil.
And you can also do things
such as apply lactic acid bacteria.
So these leeks, I'm not worried at all,
they'll bounce back just fine.
And really the only other thing that you need to do
when garlic is growing is during spring and early summer,
if there's a period of 10 days without any water
or any rain, give them a really heavy soaking.
Garlic is usually harvested
whenever the bottom 50% of leaves have turned brown,
which is usually late June through to early or mid-July,
depending on the season.
But there is actually a way to enjoy your garlic
a lot earlier from late April into May.
Earlier this year, I discovered the wonders of green garlic.
Put simply, green garlic is garlic
that is harvested prematurely,
and you can use not just the bulb
but also the stem, and it is such a pleasant, garlic flavor.
It means that you can enjoy garlic
way before your main garlic harvest,
and I'll put some links in the video description
for you to find out some recipes
and a little bit more about that.
Also, when you do harvest garlic, you don't have to dry it.
You can use it fresh, it's called wet garlic,
and the cloves are so easy to peel,
and it just tastes delicious.
A top tip to squeeze in an extra crop in the growing season
is to succession plant your garlic with dwarf french beans.
The day that the garlic was harvested,
this is the main garlic patch,
I then put in these dwarf beans
which are started around three to four weeks beforehand,
sewn in modules, and it's just a great way
to get extra food, from the same growing space.
Now, of course you do want to store
some of your garlic for the long term.
So the method that I use is I dry out the garlic plants,
with leaves and everything attached,
in the sun, for a full day.
And then I'll move them to a warm, dry and airy space,
for example, a shed or garage, and I'll hang them in bunches
or lay them on a single layer across a table.
And I'll leave them for about four to six weeks
to properly dry.
Once the garlic is cured, you want to cut off the leaves,
but leave three to five centimeters.
So, one to two inch bit, above the bulb
and then store this in a cool dark, but airy place.
For softneck garlic, if stored properly,
they can store for around 9 to 12 months.
And for hardneck garlic, it's around four to six months.
And of course, fermentation is another technique
to preserve your garlic.
One of the things that we did in
the kitchen garden fermentation course
is show you how to do honey garlic.
Super easy, and it stores the cloves for around a year.
When you do things such as embracing green garlic early
in the season, or make honey garlic,
what you're doing is you're actually taking yourself
a step closer to being self-sufficient
with that particular crop.
Garlic has a wonderful crop
if you're pursuing self-sufficiency,
but one of the biggest challenges
when doing so is understanding
how much of a particular crop you need to grow.
So I've actually created a really simple formula
that I feature garlic as the example in this video,
"the simple way to becoming self-sufficient in food."
So you can work out exactly how much garlic
you should be planting, this autumn.