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Garlic Is As Good as 10 Mothers

Posted on Tuesday, October 11, 2022 · Leave a Comment 

Back in the 1980’s the Dartmouth Film Department showed a film by Les Blanc called, “Garlic Is as Good as 10 Mothers”. It was shown in “Smell-o-Rama”. Cooking garlic smells were mysteriously introduced to the air system, filling the 900-seat auditorium with the delicious odor of roasted garlic. I attended, and loved it all. Just for the record, my one mother WAS better than garlic – but I love garlic, too, and plant plenty of it.

 

This big bulb of hard necked garlic has just 5 cloves

One of my favorite fall appetizers is take whole heads of garlic and roast them in oven-safe ramekins or small dishes at 375 degrees for 45 minutes or so. First, I peel off outer layers of the head of garlic, cut off the tips of the head and drizzle it with olive oil. When done the cloves of garlic are soft and easily squeezed out of their skins after cooling. I like to serve this on crackers or a baguette spread with goat cheese.

 

In order to have enough garlic for treats like the one described above I plant a lot of garlic each October. Usually I plant about 50 cloves but have planted up to 100 – always enough to eat daily and some to share. It really is a virtually work-free, pest-free crop. All you need is “seed” garlic sold for planting, or failing that, some organic garlic purchased at your local farmers market or food coop. Regular grocery store garlic is often treated with chemicals so it won’t sprout.

 

In addition to seed garlic you need a sunny place with decent soil, or even crummy soil you can improve with compost. To plant 50 cloves of garlic the space you need is minimal: a spot perhaps four-feet long and about three-feet wide. You could even find the space in a flower bed for a few – or on the front lawn around the light pole.

 

A garlic bed ready for planting

I plant garlic in a wide raised bed. I loosen the soil with a garden fork or my CobraHead weeder down to a depth of six inches. Then I add some good quality compost, either homemade or purchased, and stir it in. I make furrows eight inches apart and add some organic fertilizer like Pro-Gro into the furrow. I work it in with my single-tined CobraHead weeder.  Or you can sneak cloves into a flower bed individually using a hand trowel.

 

Each clove needs to be planted the way it grew- the fat part down, the pointy end up. I plant cloves about three inches deep and a hand’s width apart in the row. After pushing the clove into the loose soil I pat it down and when all are planted I cover the bed with about a foot of loose hay or straw. This will keep the garlic warm longer in the fall, allowing it to establish a good root system before the ground freezes.

 

Next spring the shoots will push right through the hay, but most weeds will not. If we have a warm fall, you might even see green shoots pushing through the hay now. Don’t worry. That won’t be a problem, come spring.

 

There are two kinds of garlic; hard-neck and soft neck. Here in New England we do best growing hard neck garlic. It has a stiff stem in the middle of each head where the scape grew last summer, while soft neck garlic does not. Soft neck garlic is sometimes seen in Italian restaurants hanging on the wall with the tops braided together.

 

Just as there are sweet onions and pungent onions that make you cry when you chop them, not all garlic tastes the same. If you are ordering garlic from a seed company, read the descriptions carefully. Be sure you are ordering hard neck garlic.They should tell you about the flavor of each, and I recommend getting three different kinds for your first trial. Since seed garlic is relatively expensive, you will want to save some garlic each year for planting the next year.

 

If you use a lot of garlic in your recipes, pay attention to how many cloves are in each head. It is less work to peel one big clove than three small ones. I grow mainly large heads, and I often have to cut one clove into two or three pieces to fit it into my garlic press. The product description should tell you not only size of the bulb, but also the number of cloves per head.

 

You can store garlic best in a cool, dry place. Ideally 50 degrees with moderate humidity. I’ve read that you can also freeze garlic instead of storing it at room temperature, but I’ve never tried that. For freezing, separate the cloves but don’t peel them. You can freeze them in a zipper bag or jar for a year or more. Don’t store garlic at room temperature in oil, as it can produce deadly botulism. 

 

Garlic that is near ready to pull

Garlic plants are handsome, especially in July when they send up tall flower scapes that twist and turn in great shapes. Think creatively, you can find a space to plant some. I often cut the scapes and use them in flower arrangements, and they are also good sliced and sautéed in a stir fry.

 

In a recent article about putting the garden to bed, I failed to mention that it is a good plan to leave some flowers standing. Why? Because some beneficial insects lay eggs in or on the stalks to overwinter. Birds will also eat the seeds of things like black-eyed Susans and cone flowers. So you have an excuse now not to clean up the gardens completely. You can finish in the spring.

 

Henry is a lifetime organic gardener and the author of 4 gardening books. Reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net.

Filed under Article · Tagged with cooking with garlic, growing garlic

Garlic Needs to Be Planted Now!

Posted on Tuesday, October 20, 2020 · Leave a Comment 

When I was growing up, my mom served meat and potatoes nearly every night. Our vegetable was  peas or cooked carrots, and once a week or so we had an iceberg lettuce salad with cucumbers, tomatoes and carrots with dressing from a bottle. So I don’t really know how I developed a taste for complex flavors. But I grow – and cook with – a lot of garlic, and find it adds depth and intensity to soups and stews. Now is the time to plant some for next year.

 

Growing garlic involves less work than anything else I grow. There really are only 3 steps: plant it, mulch it, and harvest it. Once you have an established bed of garlic, it’s also the least expensive crop. I planted this year’s crop from last year’s crop, and that one I planted from the crop of the year before. You really only have to buy garlic once – so long as you plant some extra and save it each year for planting. I choose my best looking, biggest garlic each year for planting. 

 

The hardest part of planting garlic for the first time might be to find garlic sold for planting. You can’t just go to the grocery store to get garlic because much of it has been treated with chemicals to prevent it from sprouting, and most is the wrong kind for New England.

 

I went on-line to see about buying “seed” garlic. Many major suppliers are already sold out, and prices have sky rocketed since last year. Try your local farmer or farmer’s market – they may still have some.

 

There are basically just two kinds of garlic: soft neck garlic, which is what you probably get at your grocery store, and the stuff we grow here in the Northeast called hard neck garlic. Most soft neck garlic (the kind that is braided and hung on walls) comes from California and keeps nearly forever. It is less hardy than hard neck garlic, a bit bland, and less interesting to cook with.

 

Hardneck garlic has a stiff stem in the middle of each bulb. In my opinion it has a much more complex flavor. It will keep in a cool place until spring, but not much longer. Then it either sprouts or dries up. There are many named varieties of hardneck garlic- but all are excellent.

 

To plant garlic, take a bulb (or head) of garlic and separate it into the cloves that surround the hard “neck” or flower scape. Depending on the variety of garlic, you might have just five cloves, or as many as a dozen. I like big cloves, as they are easier to peel and use. So each year I select for big cloves and plant them. Over the years my crop has produced bigger bulbs and bigger cloves.

 

Garlic needs full sun (defined as 6 hours of sunshine) and rich soil. In a 30-inch wide raised bed I add a couple of inches of compost, and stir it into the soil, loosening the soil in the top 6 inches. To plant, I draw furrows 8- to 12-inches apart with my CobraHead weeder, a single-tine tool that is curved like a bent finger. Next I push cloves into the soil so that they are 3 or 4 inches apart and about 3 inches deep. Always plant them with the pointy end up. After covering them with soil I pat the soil down with my hands.

 

This thick layer of hay helps to prevent weeds in the garlic

The last step is to mulch your garlic. I use mulch hay or straw and put almost a foot of fluffy material over the bed. Fall rains and winter snows will cause the hay to settle – I end up with about 4 to 6 inches of material in the spring.

 

The mulch keeps the soil from freezing until January, allowing roots to get well established before the garlic cloves go dormant. It also prevents most weeds from germinating and growing next year, though I weed the bed well before planting, which helps, too. Garlic is tough stuff and will push right through my layer of mulch, though most weeds do not.

 

Depending on the weather and when you plant, your garlic may send up green stalks this fall. Don’t fret if it does. Those sprouts will die back in winter, but the garlic will send up new ones in the spring.

 

Next July the garlic you planted this year will be ready to harvest. Each bulb grows about 7 long pointy leaves that surround the cloves and protect them. When 3 or 4 leaves have turned brown and started to dry up, it’s time to harvest. If you wait too long, all the leaves will have dried up and the garlic will not store as well – it will dry out too soon.

 

You can store garlic best in a cool, dry place. Ideally 50 degrees with moderate humidity. You can also freeze garlic instead of storing it at room temperature, I’ve read (but I’ve never tried that). For freezing, separate the cloves, but don’t peel them. You can freeze them in a zipper bag or jar for a year or more. Don’t store garlic at room temperature in oil, as it can produce deadly botulism. 

 

For centuries some cultures have believed that garlic helps ward off colds and the flu. Maybe it will even help to defeat Covid-19. Or maybe good garlic breath will just get that guy behind you in the check-out line with no mask to stand back a little!

 

Henry can be reached at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. He is available for consultations or to speak to your group via Zoom.

Filed under Article · Tagged with best garlic mulch, growing garlic, hardneck garlic

Planting Garlic

Garlic is one of those magical flavors that give foods depth of flavor and the richness of another world. Italian food, French food, Indian food – these all include liberal use of garlic. Why the English decided on fish and chips and boiled dinners as their staples is a mystery to me. Maybe they can’t grow garlic. But I’ve been growing garlic for my kitchen for decades. It’s easy to grow and now is the time to plant it for next year.

Hard neck garlic

Your first task is to find some garlic suitable for planting. You can’t just go the grocery store and buy some. Most commercial (non-organic) garlic has been treated with chemicals to keep it from sprouting. Instead, go to your garden center to buy some – or get a few heads of garlic from a farm stand or a friend who grows it.

Here in New England the recommended type of garlic is called ‘hard neck garlic’ and it survives our cold weather nicely. Soft neck garlic, commonly grown in California, is less cold tolerant. It is the type that can be braided and hung in the kitchen. Hard neck garlic sends up a stiff stalk, called a scape, which grows out of the middle of the bulb – a stiff neck, if you will.

Hard neck garlic generally has a stronger, richer flavor with more bite. It also comes in a wide range of flavors – just as different varieties of tomatoes and sweet corn have distinct flavors. Hardneck garlic is often classified as either rocambole, porcelain or purple stripe. Rocambole garlic has a tan outer covering and usually produces up to a dozen cloves per bulb. Porcelain garlic has a satiny white wrapper and tend to produce larger cloves with as few as four per bulb. Purple stripe garlic is one of my favorites – it is productive, tasty and generally a nice, plump size.

I like to say that everyone would be a gardener if growing all vegetables were as easy as growing garlic. There are just three steps to growing garlic: planting it, mulching it, and harvesting it. That’s right, if you mulch well it will grow well and you will never – or rarely – need to weed.

I grow garlic (and all my vegetables) in wide, mounded beds. Each bed is 30 to 36 inches wide, and mounded up 4 to 6 inches above the walkways. A short-tined garden rake or hoe is useful for shaping the beds, and to gather up loose soil from the walkways.

The first step when planting garlic is to remove any weeds from the soil. Then I enrich the soil by adding 3 or 4 inches of compost on top of the bed I am planting it in. I use a garden fork or my CobraHead hand weeder to loosen the soil and stir the compost into the top few inches of soil. Rototilling would mix the compost in deeper – good for drainage in a clay soil if you have it, but away from the roots of my garlic.

Rows of garlic need to be spaced 6 to 8 inches apart. Most years I plant short rows across my wide beds, but sometimes I will plant rows down the length of the beds – it really doesn’t matter which way you do it. I create furrows with a hand tool in the fluffy soil of my bed and sprinkle on some bagged organic fertilizer, then mix that in.

It is important to plant your garlic right side up. If you look at a bulb of garlic, you should be able to see roots, or where the roots have been cut off. The top of each clove has a slightly pointy tip, and the bottom has a small, flat scar. And of course, when looking at a bulb of hard neck garlic you can see where the scape grew. If you plant the cloves upside down, they use up a lot of energy trying to get started and grow toward the sun.

To plant, just push each clove into the prepared soil about 4 inches away from its nearest neighbor. The top of the clove should be 2 to 3 inches beneath the soil after you cover it up. Pat the soil with your hands to firm it up.

The last step is to mulch. I use mulch hay because it is inexpensive, but straw is fine, and should have fewer seeds. I put a thick, fluffy layer of hay over the entire bed – and about a foot deep. Fall rains and winter snows will compact the mulch to a 3 to 4 inch thick layer of mulch that should keep out all weeds – while allowing the garlic scapes to push through in the spring.

Garlic is ready to pick in July or August. The scapes will curl and dance as they grow, and are wonderful in a vase with flowers. The scapes are also tasty – you can chop them and add to stir fries or omelets. Store your garlic crop in a cool dark place for best storage. And don’t eat it all! Save some for planting your next crop.

I’ve been told that garlic has cancer-fighting compounds, and that it’s best to chop or press you garlic 10 minutes before cooking it to preserve the best effects. And it’s supposed to be good for keeping away vampires, not just cancer. Me? I find it necessary for a good spaghetti sauce!

Henry Homeyer is a garden designer, coach and the author of 4 gardening books. His web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.

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