Growing Garlic is Easy

Growing garlic is easy and rewarding. All you need to do is prepare a light soil and stick one of those little garlic cloves in the ground for every bulb you want to dig up at the end of summer. Buy some healthy looking bulbs and break them apart, carefully separating the cloves. The bigger cloves will produce the bigger bulbs. Plant the cloves about 2 inches down - 4 inches apart, pointy side UP.  

You can also plant garlic in the fall for harvest the next year. Here in Michigan it is a risky proposition. Sometimes the garlic does not make it through the winter. To have garlic make it through the winter it is necessary to plant it deep, 4", sometime in the fall. You may find it advantageous to spread out your fall plantings. May be a week apart for a whole month. Keep track of what works and do it that way again the next year. Mulching with leaves or hay will help to protect the cloves.

As soon as the tops of the garlic stalks start to turn brown you know it's time to consider digging them up. IF the garlic shoot starts to flower, you'll want to break the stem so the plant DOES NOT produce flowers. Carefully dig them up, knock the dirt off and then either dry them, give them away, or EAT THEM.

If you've never had the opportunity to eat FRESH garlic. You don't know what your missing. Garlic out of your garden will be quite snappy. NOT soft and squishy like the grocery store kind. Give it a try. It's easy.