Garlic's annual big reveal can be unnerving
Planted late in the fall, the bulbs are shrouded in mystery in the soil until harvest day, when there's no turning back
Growing garlic is a leap of faith. Even though it’s actually pretty easy to do, it has a big reveal quality that can be unnerving. It can result in giddy satisfaction or resigned disappointment.
Unlike many other plants garlic seeds remain buried beneath the soil for months, from late fall until the first weeks of summer. They send up pretty, arching leaves in spring along with their accompanying scapes (if you’re growing a hardneck variety). But the payoff, the reason you plant garlic, is hidden, an unknown, until time comes to harvest it. If it fails, there are no do-overs, no mulligans – until next season.
The stakes are made a bit higher because there’s no definitive way to know when the garlic is ready to be pulled from the ground. You have to judge it by the look of the leaves. Yellowing leaves are a good tell, though it’s a little imprecise. A third of the leaves? Half the leaves? It’s somewhat forgiving, though it’s probably better to harvest a little early than a little late, when bulbs can begin to split, exposing the cloves to the air and making storage more difficult. Too early, though, and your bulbs will not be as large as you want them to be, especially since a great deal of the bulbs’ growth comes in their final weeks in the ground. You also can take your hand and reach into the soil to feel the bulbs – if the cloves seem large enough, it’s time.
Growing your own garlic is worth all the uncertainty, though, because the payoff is so great. There’s nothing like the addition of garlic to a dish. It’s versatile and adds complexity and depth to any meal, which is probably why it’s used in cuisines throughout the world. My dad, who was a fruit and vegetable wholesaler in the Bronx, would hand-select garlic heads for their size and freshness and bring them home to us from work each week along with a cornucopia of other produce. You can read more about him in this piece I wrote for the Washington Post a few years ago.
I had all of this running through my mind over the last week or so as I walked past my garlic beds on my way into the vegetable garden. Finally, this week I decided it was time.
This season’s adventure began last Sept. 21, fall when I ordered three different varieties of garlic from Hudson Valley Seed Co., which is located in New York’s Catskills region. I bought German Extra Hardy and Music, types of porcelain garlic known to produce large cloves with robust flavor, and Chesnok Red-Purple Stripe, which is somewhat milder. All three are hardneck varieties, which are generally larger, pack more flavor and are cold hardy. They also produce flowering scapes in spring that can be harvested and eaten on their own. Softneck garlic is somewhat milder and smaller, grows better in the South and lasts longer in storage. I’ve always grown hardneck, even when I lived outside Washington, DC, mainly because I like having the added benefit of harvesting scapes. I also like the idea of bigger cloves.
The garlic bulbs arrived in the mail in October, maybe 10 heads in all, and I planted them on Nov. 2. That’s a bit past the average first frost date in western Massachusetts but I like to wait as long as possible so that the garlic doesn’t sprout before winter. Garlic can go in any time in the second half of autumn, and before the ground freezes.
To plant garlic, separate the cloves from the heads taking care to leave their protective dried papery layer intact. Make sure the bed is rich in compost and drains well. Plant each clove, pointed end up, about three inches deep, two to four inches apart. I planted mine staggered in rows about four inches apart. Adding a nitrogen-rich or all-purpose granular fertilizer to the soil at this stage is a good idea. Cover the bed with hay or shredded leaves to protect the cloves during the winter. Each head of hardneck garlic produces 5-8 cloves, and I planted about 60 cloves in all. I planted them in two galvanized steel rectangular raised beds I had used as part of my “driveway garden” in DC and moved with us to the Berkshires last summer.
The first green garlic leaves emerged from the straw on March 12. The Music variety was furthest along but the leaves from Chesnook Red and German Extra Hardy were also peeking through the soil. This was a relief. I’d been concerned the garlic may not survive in raised beds during the cold winter months here in Zone 5b, but it did.
This is when I may have dropped the ball, though as it turns out I guess not egregiously so. I kind of ignored the garlic bed through most of the spring as I turned my attention to the nearby vegetable garden. My attitude with garlic has always been plant and forget, remember and harvest, which is probably not the ideal strategy. So I will add right here that I should have made sure the beds were kept watered (garlic needs up to an inch of water a week), and I should have added a nitrogen rich organic fertilizer (blood meal, soybean meal or a multipurpose fertilizer) once again in late winter or early spring to help the bulbs’ development. I did neither but I will next year, if I remember.
I’ve grown garlic a bunch of times with mixed success. I always get garlic heads but sometimes they’ve been no larger than a quarter or a Kennedy half-dollar if there are any of those still around. My best year was the first year I grew it about seven or eight years ago. I harvested a bundle of beautiful, large white heads from a raised bed in my backyard garden in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
The problem is you never know until you pull them from the ground. Other plants gird you for disappointment or fill you with joy, because you can see them as they grow. If things aren’t working out you can plant some more. If they are you can take beautiful pictures of them. Garlic remains hidden. It lurks inches beneath the soil, shrouded in dirt and mystery.
This week I pulled mine from the bed. I took care to loosen the extensive roots of each head with a trowel before carefully tugging them up and out into the open. They were beautiful. Plump, swollen heads, beautifully shaped and pungent with that unique mix of damp earth and garlic. I carefully placed each head on the lawn and went back in for another, not believing my eyes. I’d say the German Extra Hardy lived up to its billing, producing the largest heads. The Chesnook Red heads were smaller, but they were fine too, though I only caught glimpses of their characteristic pink blush. All told I harvested 57 heads.
I lightly brushed some of the dirt from the heads, then tied them in bundles of 10-12, which are now hanging from the rafters in our basement. It’s a well-ventilated, dehumidified place that will allow them to cure for the next two or three weeks. If I store them successfully they should last for at least six months if we don’t use them up sooner.
Sometimes when I’m in the garden and meet with success I feel a little bit like a cat that’s caught a mouse and parades into the room to show it off. When I pulled the garlic this week, I grabbed two big bundles and waltzed across the lawn to a spot where our daughter was on her laptop doing some work. She found it amazing, which was satisfying enough for me.