Grow Your Own Garlic: Know What You Are Eating
There’s a lot to be said for knowing where your food comes from.
For most of us, there are plenty of foods we buy without knowing exactly where they were grown, how they were handled or what happened before they reached the store shelf.
Growing your own food changes that.
And garlic is one of the easiest and most rewarding places to start.
At Mad River Garlic Growers, we like to keep it simple:
Grow your own. Know what you are eating.
It Starts With Healthy Seed
When you grow garlic at home, you know exactly where it started.
Garlic sold at the grocery store is generally intended for eating—not planting. It may have been treated to prevent sprouting, and you may know very little about where or how it was grown.
More importantly, grocery-store garlic may carry pests or diseases that can be introduced into your garden, contaminate the soil and affect future garlic crops.
That is why beginning with quality garlic seed matters.
Our garlic seed is Certified Organic and carefully selected to give gardeners a healthy, dependable starting point.
From there, you’re in charge.
You choose the garden bed. You prepare the soil. You decide how you care for your plants throughout the growing season.
Months later, when you pull those first bulbs from the ground, there’s no guessing where your garlic came from.
You grew it.
One Clove Can Grow an Entire Bulb
Garlic is pretty remarkable.
You don’t plant an entire bulb. You separate it into individual cloves and plant each clove separately.
Each healthy clove has the potential to grow into a complete bulb of garlic.
That means a relatively small amount of Certified Organic garlic seed can produce a substantial harvest.
For a household that uses garlic regularly, even a modest garden bed can provide plenty of garlic for cooking, roasting, sauces, soups and all your favorite recipes.
You Know What Goes Into Your Garden
Growing your own food gives you something increasingly valuable: knowledge.
You know the soil it grew in.
You know what you added to that soil.
You know how much water it received.
You know how you managed weeds and pests.
And you know when it was harvested.
There aren’t many foods for which you can follow the entire journey—from the moment you place a clove in the ground until the day you bring the finished bulb into your kitchen.
With homegrown garlic, you can.
Garlic Doesn’t Require a Huge Garden
You don’t need acres of farmland to grow garlic.
Garlic grows well in traditional garden beds, raised beds and smaller backyard gardens.
Because cloves are planted individually and spaced relatively close together, you can grow a surprising amount of garlic in a relatively small space.
The basics are straightforward:
- Choose a sunny location.
- Plant in soil that drains well.
- Add compost or organic matter if your soil needs it.
- Separate the bulbs into individual cloves shortly before planting.
- Plant each clove with the pointed end facing up.
- Give the cloves time to establish roots before winter.
- Mulch where appropriate for your climate.
- Watch for new growth when spring arrives.
Then comes the hard part:
Waiting.
Why Plant Garlic in the Fall?
For many gardeners, fall is the best time to plant garlic.
Hardneck garlic benefits from a period of cold weather or vernalization. Fall planting allows the cloves to establish roots before winter and resume growing when temperatures warm in the spring.
In warmer climates that don’t receive enough natural winter cold, hardneck garlic may need to be force-vernalized by refrigerating it for 4-6 weeks before planting. This mimics winter conditions and helps the garlic form a properly divided bulb.
It establishes roots before winter, rests during the cold months, and begins growing again in spring.
As spring days become longer and temperatures rise, those changes signal the plant to stop producing leaves and begin forming a bulb.
Planting time varies depending on where you live.
Gardeners in colder northern climates will generally plant at a different time than growers in warmer regions.
The goal is to plant after the weather and soil have cooled but several weeks before the ground freezes solid.
This gives the cloves time to establish roots without encouraging excessive top growth before winter.
Grow Garlic You’ll Actually Want to Eat
Growing your own garlic also gives you the opportunity to explore varieties you’re unlikely to find at the grocery store.
Mad River Garlic Growers offers 40 varieties of Certified Organic hardneck and softneck garlic seed, with different flavors, heat levels, clove sizes, storage qualities and growing characteristics.
You might discover a variety you love roasted.
Another may become your favorite for fresh salsa or pasta.
And another might earn a permanent place in your garden because it performs especially well in your climate.
That’s part of the fun of growing garlic.
Start Small or Grow Enough for the Year
You don’t have to turn your backyard into a garlic farm.
If this is your first season, begin with a manageable amount and learn as you grow.
Our Grower Packs make choosing easier, whether you’re planting garlic for the first time or want enough to keep your kitchen stocked. Grower Packs also include free shipping.
Experienced gardeners can select individual varieties or grow several different garlic families to compare their flavors and performance.
There Is Still Time to Order for Fall Planting
If you’ve been thinking about growing garlic, now is the time to order your seed and prepare your garden.
Our most popular varieties sell out every season, and waiting may mean missing the variety you really want.
Start with healthy, Certified Organic garlic seed, prepare a good garden bed and let Mother Nature do much of the work from there.
Months from now, you’ll pull a beautiful bulb from the soil that began with one little clove you planted yourself.
That’s a pretty good feeling.
Grow your own. Know what you are eating.
And grow some really good garlic while you’re at it.
Shop 40 varieties of Certified Organic garlic seed and free-shipping Grower Packs at Mad River Garlic Growers.
