How To Grow Garlic

by Alan Titchmarsh

Vampires beware; that most controversial continental food additive, garlic, has taken Britain by storm, and these days enthusiasts are even growing their own. Most of the time it’s very successful. It’s been much less so this year, as the very severe weather knocked most over-wintering garlic for six, and summer was so poor. But it’s still worth having a go, for the huge cost saving and the opportunity to try unusual gourmet varieties you won’t find on sale at the greengrocers.

Garlic cloves (the sort intended for planting as against eating), are available in garden centres any time now, and if you’ve ordered supplies by post from mail order catalogues they’ll arrive soon.

Garlic varieties fall into two basic groups, each with small but important differences.

Softneck are the most popular and best known kinds; these varieties produce a lot of smallish cloves that store well after they’ve been harvested. These are the earliest to reach useable stage, ready as early as June, but only if they are planted in autumn – October is ideal as it gives them time to take root before winter sets in, but you can plant up to December. Softneck varieties include ‘Early Purple Wight’ and ‘Solent Wight’.

Hardneck varieties are often regarded by enthusiasts as the gourmet garlics. They have fewer but bigger cloves but they don’t keep well so they need using soon after they are ready. Their big peculiarity is that they often send up tall, thick flower stalks known as ‘scapes’ which leads to a lot of growers throwing their crop away thinking it’s run to seed and ruined, but you can cut the scapes to slice up and use just like normal garlic and still harvest the crop afterwards. Hardneck garlic varieties are less commonly found, but they include ‘Lautrec Wight’ and ‘Chesnok Wight’. These could be planted in spring, to avoid risk of rotting over the winter, but autumn planting gives bigger crops.

Image courtesy of www.mytinyplot.co.uk

The third type of garlic you might be offered, to grow, is Elephant garlic. This isn’t really a true garlic at all as its more closely related to leeks. It has enormous cloves which taste extremely mild but are much in demand for roasting whole. When the bulbs turn up in greengrocers’ (which isn’t often) they sell for a small fortune, so if you are a fancier it’s very well worth growing your own. Just treat it the same way as normal garlic.

If you’re worried about another dud winter (and I wouldn’t discount the possibility) you could hedge your bets and delay planting dormant cloves outside till early spring – but your crop will be smaller and it won’t be ready until much later in the season – perhaps August or September. (Some growers pull a few plants early to use as ‘wet garlic’ in July while its still growing). So be sneaky with garlic, by giving it a head start under cover.

Plant each individual clove in a small pot filled with a 50:50 mixture of John Innes 2 and multipurpose compost, keep them in a cold frame, greenhouse or clear-roofed car port and then planting them out in spring when conditions are better.

Whenever you plant, garlic needs a sunny, sheltered spot with well-drained soil that is very slightly alkaline. While it’s growing it’s vital to keep the crop well watered and even more importantly well weeded. But starting it off well is half the battle.