Why grow garlic? Taste is the simple answer. The sweet, subtle flavours of a home-grown bulb will put you off acrid, long-stored shop garlic for ever. Grow garlic yourself and you can eat it at every stage, snipping the spring onion-like greens into tarts and soups in February and later on harvesting the curly green stalk-like flower buds or ‘scapes’ (to use like green beans or asparagus).
At harvest time the baked heads of the ‘wet’ new garlic can be roasted whole and the dried crop eaten until Christmas and beyond. Even months after lifting, a home-grown bulb still retains its sweetness. On top of taste, garlic has long been used for centuries to fight disease and infection, and today is thought to help lower both cholesterol levels and blood pressure.
Garlic farmer Colin Boswell believes it’s the range of so many individual cultivars that makes garlic growing exciting. “For the amateur grower it’s the provenance of these bulbs that is their strong selling point,” he says. “If you grow your own you can have a bit of France, the Black Sea or Spain in your patch. I love the Heritage hardnecks from Eastern Europe, they have big cloves, they’re easy peeling and incredibly juicy.”
How to grow garlic
Garlic is a straightforward crop. If you can grow a pot of narcissi you can probably manage a row of garlic. Just find a patch of sunny ground and push the cloves into a hole made with a dibber or your finger.
Best soil for garlic
Seed garlic supplier and market gardener Jennifer Birch advises dressing your soil with rock potash and bone meal applied at around 50g per square metre before planting.
How to plant garlic
Jojo plants her cloves 20cm apart with the soil just covering the tip of the garlic (no more than 25mm beneath the surface) in rows 20cm apart, with alternate rows planted diagonally to each other to create a herringbone pattern. In smaller gardens the spacing can be reduced to 10cm. “The garlic will push up out of the ground as it grows and should be gently pushed back in at this stage, taking care not to damage the roots,” she says. When you split a garlic head you also get a number of tiny elongated cloves. These, Jennifer suggests, should be planted together and harvested as you would spring onions.
When to sow garlic
As well as being low maintenance, garlic has another advantage: it’s an over-winter crop, grown when other crops are dormant. You can sow from September to the following February to harvest from May to July. Don’t wait until the green leaves have fallen over as with onions – if you do this you may find your garlic bulbs have split when you dig them up – instead poke around beneath the soil regularly to check the bulbs have not started splitting up. Otherwise it’s simply a case of running a hoe down the rows to keep them weed free and watering.
Watering garlic
“The really critical months for watering are in late spring,” says Colin. “If you let the plants dry out in April or May they will assess the water available and decide to make a smaller bulb.” When you’re satisfied with the size of the bulbs, choose a dry, sunny day to lift and spread the bulbs out over the soil (if no rain is forecast) or under cover with ventilation.
Storing garlic
When the heads are good and dry, trim the stem down to about 6cm and cut off the roots, rub away the dirty outer layers of skin with your thumb and plait together. When the growing is done comes the delight of discovering the depth of flavours really fresh garlic will bring to your cooking.
The best garlic to grow
Here are nine great garlics to plant in September and harvest from May to July:
Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon ‘Extra Early Wight’
A large, white softneck, with a crisp, fresh flavour. Ready end of May. Has a white bulb streaked with mauve.
Allium sativum ‘Iberian Wight’
Large, fat, white garlic with purple stripes. From southwest Spain, it is an excellent all-round garlic with large cloves perfect for Spanish dishes, especially tomatoes.
Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon ‘Red Duke’
A hardneck, heritage garlic from Moravia in the Czech Republic. It has plump purple cloves and a fierce, spicy flavour.
Allium ampeloprasum ‘Elephant’
Less intense than some cultivars, with a warm, mild flavour. Roasted whole, the large head makes for a spectacular feast.
Allium sativum ‘Solent Wight’
A cultivar Colin Boswell of The Garlic Farm highly recommends both for its flavour and the length of time it keeps – normally around nine months.
Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon ‘Lautrec Wight’
One of Jennifer Birch’s favourites and considered by many to be one of the most flavoursome. Can be planted in autumn or early spring, but not good for wet conditions.
Allium sativum ‘Germidour’
An early cropping garlic with rich purple head and ivory cloves. The reliably big heads must be checked regularly for splitting pre-harvest. AGM*.
Allium sativum ‘Thermidrôme’
Traditional cultivar producing large white heads and cloves. Plant October to November for a July harvest, but use by Christmas after cropping.
Allium sativum ‘Arno’
With a white head and pink cloves, this new cultivar has the largest bulbs of any long-dormancy type.
Don’t be tempted to plant cloves from a shop-bought garlic, which may be a cultivar better suited to warmer climates. Instead try The Garlic Farm, Mersley Lane, Newchurch, Isle of Wight PO36 0NR (Tel 01983 865378, thegarlicfarm.co.uk), which stocks many of the cultivars.
No garden? Grow vegetables in pots.