Don’t believe the hype and wait for the shortest day of the year. You need to plant your garlic now – here’s how I’ll go about it.
I don’t eat much garlic. A few years back I worked out that I shared my grandfather’s problem with digesting alliums such as garlic and onions. At the time it was a bit devastating, because I love garlic. I still use it in some of my preserves (such as pickled cucumbers) and we add a few bulbs when cooking the weekly Sunday roast, but our household uses very little garlic. I can hardly justify growing it.
But every year I grow a huge crop of garlic anyway. Why, you ask? Because it is so easy to grow. Save the best bulbs from last year’s crop, pop them in at the right time of year, weed them occasionally and that’s it. When the plants are finished, just lift the bulbs and hang them in the shed (more on that here). Never was there a more simple crop to grow. Other than a bit of time, it costs me nothing – no money to buy seeds, no water, not even compost or fertiliser. Nothing.
Don’t double book your patch
The major downside of growing garlic is time. Garlic takes a long time to reach maturity and is not harvested until well into summer. So avoid planting it in a space you’ve earmarked for planting out in spring, or you’ll find your patch ends up double booked. It’s a common mistake that many folks make.
Common problems when growing garlic
Garlic is “almost foolproof” ( a great oxymoron if ever I’ve written one). Not much can go wrong when growing garlic except:
Rust. Orange spots or blisters on your garlic leaves are signs of rust. It’s a fungal disease, exacerbated by too much humidity. Lots of folks advocate for removing affected foliage, avoiding planting in the same spot etc. But when I had an outbreak of rust in 2023 I didn’t heed that advice and my crop was fine, despite the rust. The bulbs were big and healthy. They stored well and I planted them again in 2024. The rust eventually reemerged in the subsequent crop. I’m running an experiment this year to determine the best way to overcome this problem. More on that here.
Rotting bulbs. If it’s the end of the season and your garlic plants have died back but the soil is still cold and damp, you can run the risk of the bulbs rotting in the soil. My sandy soil is free draining, so it’s never been an issue for me, even when I’ve left the bulbs in the soil for a month longer than I should have. If you have clay soil, timely harvesting of your bulbs can prevent them from rotting.
The following posts in the Vegetable Patch from Scratch series will give you more information on:
Myth-busting: garlic the vampire slayer?
The ancient Celtic word “all” means “monster slayer” and gives rise to the word “allium”, the genus that garlic belongs to. Traditionally garlic has been used against vampires, witches and evil spirits. It’s also great for warding off prospective romantic interests if you indulge in a garlic- rich dish on a first date. There are plenty of claims as to the health properties of eating garlic. But the myth about garlic that I want to debunk relates to the timing of planting.
The myth: “Plant on the shortest day of the year and harvest on the longest day of the year.”
I’m not sure where this myth originated, but if you follow this advice in my part of the world, your garlic won’t amount to much. The plants will grow, but the bulbs that form will be insipid and small. In the temperate regions of south-eastern Australia you need to plant your garlic in March to get the best results.
The nitty-gritty of growing garlic: phenology, varieties and planting
Timing
This chart shows the best times to grow garlic based on my experience of growing these crops in both Melbourne (warm temperate) and Kyneton (cool temperate), both in south-eastern Australia. The timing is applicable for growers in the same climates across the southern hemisphere. Northern hemisphere folks will need to adjust the timing by six months.