Garlic Planting Checklist

22 items · Home · Easy difficulty · 2 hours

Plant garlic in fall for a summer harvest: choosing hardneck or softneck, preparing the bed, planting depth and spacing, mulch and spring care.

• Look up the garlic planting window for your area

  Your state or county extension service gives one, based on when the ground usually freezes.

• Choose hardneck or softneck garlic

  Hardneck types handle cold winters better and send up scapes in early summer. Softneck types suit milder winters and keep longer in storage.

• Buy seed garlic from a garden center or seed supplier

  Supermarket garlic may be a variety that does not suit your climate, and some is treated to slow sprouting.

• Pick a spot in full sun with soil that drains well

  Cloves sitting in wet soil over winter can rot. Use a raised bed if the ground stays soggy.

• Avoid a bed that grew garlic, onions or leeks in the last few years

  Rotating the bed keeps diseases of the onion family from building up in the soil.

• Clear the weeds and roots from the bed
• Dig in a layer of compost
• Break the heads into cloves on planting day

  Leave the papery skin on each clove.

• Set aside the largest cloves for planting
• Plant each clove pointed end up, flat root end down

  A clove planted upside down can still grow, but it tends to come up late.

• Set the cloves about 2 inches deep and 4 to 6 inches apart

  Leave about a foot between rows so you can weed between them.

• Label each row with the variety and the date
• Water the bed if the soil is dry
• Cover the bed with a thick layer of straw or shredded leaves

  Freezing and thawing can push cloves up out of the soil. Mulch evens that out, and it keeps weeds down in spring.

• Write down where and when you planted

  Next year's rotation depends on it.

• In spring, pull the mulch back from the shoots once hard frosts have passed
• Weed often through spring

  Garlic has few leaves and shallow roots, and it loses out to weeds quickly.

• Cut the scapes from hardneck garlic when they curl

  The plant then puts more into the bulb, and the scapes are good to cook.

• Stop watering a couple of weeks before harvest
• Dig the bulbs when the lower leaves have turned brown

  Loosen the soil with a fork first. Pulling by the stem can snap it off.

• Cure the bulbs somewhere dry, shaded and airy for a few weeks
• Save the best heads to plant next fall

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