Gourmet Garlic from the Ground Up

Enlarge Image Image Gallery The bold, strappy foliage of garlic provides a handsome accent in mixed borders and kitchen gardens alike. Rob Cardillo

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This article is part of our Guide to Garlic. Click here for recipes and cooking tips or click here to learn about garlic's health benefits.

Back in the dark ages, when I thought garlic was just garlic (without distinction), I purchased a few heads of the Rocambole cultivar ‘Spanish Roja’ at a local farmers’ market. I discovered a different garlic flavor—rich, sweet and complex—and I knew then that all garlic is not the same.

If supermarket garlic is all you have experienced, you too could be in for quite a revelation. Because of its adaptability throughout many areas of the world, garlic exhibits a wide range of characteristics, with differences in flavor; ease of peeling; cold hardiness; clove number and size; and storage properties.

By growing your own garlic, you can discover your personal favorites and save part of your stock for subsequent plantings—a wonderful ritual of culinary pleasure. You will find that garlic adapts to local growing conditions, often growing better and producing larger bulbs as time goes by.

Garlic is very easy to grow. For detailed information, please see my book, The Complete Book of Garlic (Timber Press, 2008). Use this guide as a starting point:

1. Start with quality stock. Obtain planting stock from a local grower or from a specialty producer of "seed" garlic. Separate the cloves and discard any that look unhealthy. Remember that one clove will produce one bulb at harvest; the biggest cloves will produce the biggest bulbs.

2. Plant cloves in a sunny location in fall, at least three weeks before the ground freezes. October is a good planting month for most North American climates. Plant cloves root end down, pointed tip up, 2 to 3 inches deep. Space the plantings 6 inches apart, with rows 10 inches apart.

3. Plant in loose, loamy soil with a near-neutral pH. Garlic does not need a lot of nitrogen, but adding composted manure to the soil before planting will improve soil structure and provide nutrients. Feed again in early spring with a liquid fertilizer or foliar spray.

4. If your winters are very cold or dry, mulch your beds to protect the garlic from freezing and drying. A loose mulch, such as straw, works well. If you have wet springs, remove the straw as soon as the weather warms to prevent problems with mold, slugs or snails. (See Fresh Clips for more about protecting garlic in winter.)

5. Keep garlic well watered but do not suffocate it in mud. Unless you have very muddy conditions, it’s best to err on the side of ample moisture rather than too little.

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