Autumn is for Alliums!
And that means now is the perfect time to plant garlic into your veggie garden at home.
Garlic is a long-term crop, taking between 6-8 months to get ready for harvest, depending on the variety you’ve chosen.
Be sure to only use organic Australian garlic to plant in your garden, & choose suitable cultivars for your area. There are so many hard & soft neck garlic varieties available, so you’re sure to find at least a few to plant at home.
Here are our tips to growing the best garlic crop ever.
Location
Plant garlic in an area of the garden which gets full sun & gentle air movement around the plot.
Soil
Garlic thrives in rich soil with plenty of organic matter. Ideally, you want the soil to be crumbly & light (ie not compacted), well-draining & free from weeds or debris such as rocks or sticks.
Planting
Divide your head of garlic into individual cloves just before planting.
Top tip: use the biggest cloves for planting to get bigger garlic heads at harvest time!
Plant the clove with the root end down & the pointy tip upwards in rows. Leave a 10cm space between cloves & plant to 2cm depth.
Water
Give the newly planted cloves a good drink & then water regularly. But don’t overdo it, as garlic aren’t fond of wet feet!
Decrease water as it gets closer to harvesting time so the soil is dry when you’re pulling the garlic crop up.
Maintenance
Add a layer of light & fluffy organic mulch on top of the soil once you’ve planted your crop. This helps retain moisture & suppress weeds.
Liquid feed your garlic crop fortnightly, or granular feed monthly.
Harvest
Garlic is ready for harvest when the leaves reduce & start to die off. Usually around November.
Once harvested, leave the garlic to dry out in the sun for 2 weeks (don’t let them get wet), and then bunch together or plait the stems & hang in a cool, well-ventilated place.
To read even more tips, head to @perthcityfarm