When To Plant Garlic So You Get Huge Bulbs This Season

Hello gardeners and welcome back to my channel. Today I'm going to teach you exactly how to plant and grow garlic so you get the biggest healthiest bulbs possible even if you garden in a hot climate like Florida. Garlic can be a little tricky in warm regions because it has specific cold requirements but once you understand the timing and the steps it becomes one of the easiest and most rewarding crops you can grow. I'll walk you through when to order your seed garlic, how to properly vernalize it, how to soak and plant it, and the soil amendments you need for the biggest bulbs. By the end of this video you'll feel completely confident planting garlic perfectly no matter where you're located. And just so you guys know behind me this is like a wall of death. It is February at the time of filming this video. We just had a couple weeks of like the worst cold I've ever seen in my area in 15 or 20 years so I lost a lot of plants and unfortunately this was one of it. You can't cut that stuff back until a couple weeks just to see you know if it will grow back or if it's truly dead so that's why it's still here and brown and ugly. But my garlic made it through unscathed. Garlic is actually extremely cold tolerant. We got some temperatures down to about 23 degrees Fahrenheit and they were unscathed. By the way if you're new here my name is Jarrah. I'm a lifelong gardener, certified permaculture designer, and owner of a seed and plant nursery in Orlando, Florida. I teach home gardeners how to grow more food with less stress using the exact plants and techniques I use in my own garden and nursery. If you want to grow along with me many of the seeds and plants I mention are available on my website jarrahsgarden.com. I want to give you a quick heads up if you want to grow the exact varieties I grow right here in my Florida garden I am running my annual seed garlic pre-sale right now. We do a pre-sale to collect all of the orders for a certain period of time and then ship them all at once in September which is perfectly timed for fall planting. I'll drop the link in the description below so you can check it out, see pricing, and reserve yours before the pre-sale closes. Before we get into planting it helps to understand the two main types of garlic you'll see when choosing what to grow. Picking a variety that matches your climate can make a big difference in how well your garlic performs. Garlic falls into two main categories hard neck and soft neck. Hard neck garlic grows a stiff central stalk called a scape and usually forms fewer but larger cloves that are easy to peel. It's known for its strong rich flavor and you also get the bonus of harvesting edible garlic scapes in late spring. The downside is that hard neck garlic doesn't store as long, usually just a few months after curing. Because it needs a longer period of cold to form good bulbs, hard neck garlic is often recommended for cooler or northern climates. Soft neck garlic on the other hand doesn't produce a scape. Its bulbs contain many smaller cloves wrapped in layers of papery skin. Soft necks tend to have a milder flavor, store extremely well, often nine months or longer and have flexible stems that make them perfect for braiding. They usually perform best in mild or warm climates which is why they're commonly recommended for southern gardens. So which one should you grow? In general gardeners in cold climates do well with hard neck garlic while gardeners in warmer areas often have better results with soft neck varieties. With that said these are just guidelines not strict rules. I garden in Florida and I'm often told that only soft neck garlic will grow here and that hard necks won't work at all. That hasn't been my experience. In fact my best garlic harvest so far came from a hard neck variety called Vietnamese Purple also known as Deerfield Purple. Because of this I really encourage you to experiment. Try a few different varieties each season and see what performs best in your garden. I found that choosing the right cultivar, understanding vernalization, and preparing your planting area properly matter more than whether a garlic is labeled hard neck or soft neck. This season I'm testing several Vietnamese and Korean varieties to see how they do and I'm excited to learn from the results which I will definitely share with you guys. I want to clear up an important point about how garlic is grown. Unlike most vegetables garlic isn't grown from seeds. Instead it's grown from what is called seed garlic which are bulbs saved from a previous harvest. Each bulb is broken apart into individual cloves and each clove is planted to grow a whole new bulb with multiple cloves. Seed garlic is specifically grown and selected for replanting not for eating. You can absolutely eat it but it's usually made up of the largest, healthiest, best performing bulbs from the previous harvest. Those top quality bulbs are set aside so they can be replanted the following season and produce a strong reliable crop. Now of course you can plant garlic from the grocery store but there are a few big downsides to doing this. When you buy garlic from the grocery store you usually don't know what the variety is whether it's a hard neck or soft neck type or if it has been sprayed with growth inhibitors that prevent it from sprouting or growing properly into a new bulb. Most importantly grocery store garlic is not certified disease free. It's grown for consumption not for replanting. I don't know about you but gardening in Florida already means dealing with a lot of pests and diseases. The last thing I want is to accidentally introduce new problems into my garden by planting garlic that may be carrying fungal diseases, nematodes or other issues. Once those are in your soil they can be very hard to get rid of. That's why I prefer to use brand new certified disease free seed garlic from a reputable seller. With seed garlic you know exactly what variety you're growing whether it's a hard neck or soft neck and that it's been inspected and grown specifically for planting. This gives you a healthier start, better growth and a much better chance of a strong harvest. Plan to order your seed garlic at the end of summer or an early fall. That way it arrives in time for planting four to six weeks before your first winter frost date or if you're a hot climate gardener with mild winters it gives you time to vernalize which is basically cold stratification but for garlic. I'll explain the vernalization process in a bit. Alright so you ordered your seed garlic. Let's discuss the correct time to plant it. Garlic needs to be planted about six weeks before your first winter frost date. Once planted it will sprout, start growing a root system under the ground through winter and mature or bulb up the following spring. Garlic must be exposed to a certain period of time in cold temperatures in order to trigger the bulbing process in spring. Basically the cold temperatures signal to the garlic that it's winter time and then when temperatures start to warm up in spring this signals to the garlic that spring has arrived and it's time to start bulbing up. If you garden in a hot or warm climate especially in the southern parts of the United States, garden zones eight and up, winters are often too mild to give garlic the required cold it needs to form bulbs. If you've tried growing garlic before and it only produced small bulbs or lots of leafy growth with little to no bulb this is usually why. It simply didn't get enough cold exposure. Warm climate gardeners still plant garlic around the same time as cooler regions but there's one extra step that's absolutely necessary called vernalization. Vernalization is a process of exposing garlic to an extended period of cold before planting. This cold treatment is what triggers garlic to bulb properly in spring. Cold climate gardeners get this naturally from their winter weather but in warm climates we have to create that cold period ourselves using the refrigerator. If you garden in a mild or warm region, plan to order your seed garlic so it arrives three to four months before your target planting date. Using my garden as an example, my first winter frost date is the very last week of December. That means I should plant my seed garlic four to six weeks before this which lands me in about mid-November. I like to order my seed garlic in August so once it's delivered I can vernalize for almost three months. As soon as it arrives, place the bulbs in a brown paper bag and store them in the crisper drawer of your refrigerator. Both hardneck and softneck garlic need about three to four months of cold treatment to form proper bulbs. Elephant garlic is the exception. It doesn't require vernalization because it's more closely related to a leak than a true garlic. Cold climate gardeners have it a little bit easier. They can order seed garlic about six weeks before planting and once the cloves are in the ground, winter temperatures naturally provide the cold needed for good bulb development. Now let's choose the best spot to grow garlic in your garden. Garlic needs full sun even in hot climates like Florida. It has to harvest a lot of energy from the sun to form big bulbs. Begin by clearing the planting area of weeds. Garlic does best when it's not competing with other plants since nearby growth can block sunlight and steal nutrients. I'm using a weed hoe also called a stirrup hoe because it makes quick work of removing weeds while also loosening the top few inches of soil. Garlic thrives in loose well-draining soil that's rich in organic matter. Compacted soil can restrict bulb growth and soil that stays too wet can cause the bulbs to rot under the ground. If needed, add plenty of compost or worm castings to improve both drainage and soil structure. Because garlic is a heavy feeder, I always amend the soil before planting. Early in the season, garlic benefits from a good supply of nitrogen to support strong leafy growth. The more healthy leaves a garlic plant has, the more sunlight it can capture, which directly impacts bulb size at harvest time. For nitrogen, you can use blood meal, feather meal, or an all-purpose organic granular fertilizer, which is what I'm using. Since I garden in an area prone to root-knot nematodes, I also add generous amounts of crab meal to my soil before planting. The chitin in crab meal encourage beneficial microorganisms that help suppress nematodes. I'm not adding crab meals specifically for garlic growth, but as part of my overall nematode management routine. If you garden in a cold climate where nematodes aren't an issue, you can skip this step. If you garden in a warm climate, I highly recommend regularly amending your soil with crab meal and insect frost or worm castings. I have a full video series on nematode management that I'll link in the description if you want to learn more. Later in the season, when garlic begins forming bulbs underground, phosphorus and potassium become especially important. I add these nutrients now so they have time to break down and become available to the plants. For phosphorus, I'm using bone meal, but you can also use something like triple super phosphate. For potassium, good options include kelp meal, green sand, or muriate of potash, which is what I'm applying here. Once all the amendments are added, I work everything into the soil with the weed hoe. After that, I lay my drip irrigation lines over the bed. I'm using flat drip tape with emitters spaced every six inches, which works perfectly for garlic. If you'd like to see how I built my drip irrigation system, I'll link my full tutorial in the description. If you're not using drip irrigation, that's completely fine. Just keep an eye on soil moisture and water by hand as needed. Try to water at the base of the plants and avoid wetting the leaves as excess moisture on foilage can encourage diseases. Now it's time to separate each clove off your seed garlic bulbs. Inspect each clove. The bigger the clove, the bigger the bulb will be at harvest time. Do not use any cloves that show signs of damage or rotting. Also, it does not make any difference if the clove still has its papery outer wrapper on or not. Professional garlic farmers pre-treat their seed garlic before planting because it improves growth and reduces diseases. It is not a required step, but the pre-soak treatments are very easy to do, so why not do everything you can to ensure a good harvest. The first pre-soak treatment is a sterilizing soak. Soak the cloves for around 10 minutes in a sterilizing liquid. You can use 70% or higher isopropyl alcohol, cheap vodka, or full strength 3% hydrogen peroxide, which is what I'm using. After the sterilizing soak, drain the cloves out of the solution. Then complete the second pre-treatment soak, which is to soak in some fertilizer. This gives the garlic a strong nutrient boost before planting. For this, place the cloves into a container with liquid kelp fertilizer, a garlic specific fertilizer blend, or fish emulsion, which is what I'm using. Let the cloves sit in this fertilizer solution for at least 30 minutes before planting. They can be soaked for up to about three days. I soaked mine overnight. The next day, I drain all of the seed garlic out of the fertilizer soak, and now it's time to plant. I dig a planting hole that is about three inches deep right under my drip irrigation emitters. Place the garlic cloves with the pointy end facing up and the root end facing down. Space each clove about six to nine inches apart in rows that are one to two feet apart. Cover with soil and water them in. The last step is to cover the area with a thick layer of mulch at least three to four inches deep. Mulch helps regulate soil temperature, especially in warm climates. Keeping the soil cool is extremely important for garlic, and mulch also helps conserve moisture and reduce weed pressure. It will take a few weeks for the garlic to sprout. Just continue to water when needed and keep the area weed free. Once it sprouts, I like to give it a nitrogen boost with some liquid fish emulsion to encourage leafy growth. Use something that doesn't have a crazy high amount of nitrogen because that will cause the plant to just focus on leafy growth instead of also developing its bulb under the ground. I continue with more applications of fish emulsion about once every two to three weeks. Once I'm halfway through the growing season, I switch to a fertilizer higher in phosphorus and potassium to encourage root development. Too much nitrogen during this time will encourage more leafy growth with less focus on root development. I like to use agro thrive fruit and flower or farmer's secret fruit and bloom because they have higher phosphorus and potassium amounts than nitrogen. I fertilize about once every three weeks until I'm about one month away from harvest time. Then I stop fertilizing altogether to allow the bulbs to mature. Just to give you an idea, I plant my garlic at the end of November or early December. I usually harvest in April or May. This will vary depending on where you're located, how long your winters are, and what variety of garlic you're growing. If you're ready to start planting your garlic this fall, don't forget my seed garlic presale is open right now through July 10th. I'm offering my favorite varieties in half pound and one pound options plus bundles with a discount. Once the presale closes, I will not have seed garlic available again until next year, so if you want to grow along with me this season, grab yours right now. The link is in the description below. Also, next week part two of my garlic series will be released which shows how and when to harvest your garlic. Growing garlic is one of the most rewarding gardening experiences, especially when you harvest those big beautiful bulbs in spring. I hope this guide helps you feel confident planting garlic no matter where you're located. Happy gardening and I'll see you in the next video.