Growing your own Garlic

Last year was my first experience growing garlic. It is fairly easy to grow. I bought 4 bulbs of German White  Hardneck garlic from a local guy. He told me to plant it with fish bone meal, then top with dirt and chicken manure. And plant it in October. So that is what I did.

 

Here is half of the garlic I harvested in July.

These are the things I learned.
1. Hardneck garlic grow a scape. When the scape is curled, cut it off. This is so the plant puts energy into growing the garlic bulb and not a flower.

2. The scape are delicious, I found many recipes on the web to use them in.

3. When I planted the garlic I just dug a little hole and planted a clove. Well some of the soil was looser in some areas then others. The garlic that was planted in the looser soil was bigger and easier to dig at harvest time.

This weekend I planted my garlic again, but this time the garlic cloves came from the bulbs I harvested.

What I did differently:
 I put a layer of chicken manure with hay, then a layer of leaves.

Then my son helped me add a layer of top soil and bone meal.

Last I planted my garlic cloves.

These are the garlic bulbs I got the cloves from.

 

I hope this process will produce bigger bulbs and easy to dig garlic.

 

 

Do you grow your own garlic, if so what kind?



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