Q&A for How to Grow Garlic

The tips may have turned yellow from under-watering or some other reason. Wait until the entire plant has changed color to harvest. If the bulbs are still small, conduct a soil test to see if you have the proper amount of nutrients to support growth.

Mulch helps to keep the young shoots from freezing during the winter, and helps keep the soil cool and moist in the summer. It may not die, but the plants will produce smaller and fewer bulbs without mulch.

Yes, scapes can be cut from the plant to eat. It is best to cut a few of the small, tender scapes. Do not continually cut the same plant or you will compromise the bulb growth below ground.

Use a planter that's at least 8 inches deep so your garlic has enough room to grow roots.

Stop watering your garlic about 2–4 weeks before you plan on harvesting them.

Garlic is best grown from bulbs purchased from a garden center, nursery or online garden seed supplier. Store varieties will not have been transported or stored with regrowing it in mind, and many are sprayed with an anti-sprouting chemical.

Garlic can be stored fresh for a short time and for a long time dried. For more information on storing garlic, check out the full details in this wikiHow: How to Store Garlic .

The bulbs can be harvested when the garlic leaves have turned yellow and look like they're dying off.

Yes, there is a variety of garlic known as elephant garlic. True to its name, it has extra large cloves.

Loosen the soil/dirt up around the bulb or simply dig the garlic up instead of pulling it up from the stem.

The bulb like thing is called a scape, most hard necked varieties of garlic produce these. It is the garlics flowering pod which contains many seeds or bulbils. Some people pick them off and eat them finding them to have a delightful flavor. However, picking them is not suggested as some varieties actually produce much larger garlic bulbs if the scapes are left untouched. In addition, you may wish to leave some of the garlic plants in the ground longer than your usual harvest time. The scapes will at some point burst open and you can collect the seeds to use as starters for a new crop of garlic.

About 6 months.

Brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper then roast in a clay pot for 40-45 minutes at 350ºF.

Yes, you can. Make sure that the planter is near a window and the temperature does not fluctuate drastically.

It's possible that the garlic you bought was sprayed with anti-rooting chemicals, which may have let the leaves sprout but no bulb develop. If you just got one bulb without cloves, consider that you harvested it too early, before cloves could develop. It will still be edible, just no cloves.

You should have sprouts in about 4 weeks.

Yes, as long as the pot is big enough.

Yes. Scapes (flowers) only appear on hardneck varieties and can be eaten and used much like a chive or green onion would be. Cutting them back at the right time can help the plant send more energy into the bulb, resulting in a larger head.

No, definitely not. Just carefully split the cloves from the head and plant them the right way up.

There's decent evidence that eating garlic can help against some parasites and bacteria. The active ingredient (allicin) only appears in fresh, raw garlic that's been crushed, chopped, or chewed. Aged or cooked garlic will not have much effect.

Garlic needs moist, not soggy soil to grow. Here, in the coastal hills of northern California, the ground doesn't freeze in any but the historically cold spells, but it is frequently wet from rain. So I grow my garlic in raised beds and irrigate when necessary. Because of the likelihood of very wet periods, I don't apply mulch. Hardneck varieties seem to do very well here. As with most everything in the garden, you need to use some common sense and adjust the "rules" to fit the situation.

Leave them for the following year.

Not necessarily. All mulches are said to work with the same efficiency. One recommendation is using rotted grass clippings though, as these seem to be especially good for garlic.

No, cutting the first growth of leaves will not help. To get bigger cloves, you need to plant the biggest garlic pieces. Use 10-10-10 fertilizer after planting to help promote growth.

You can leave them on and the garlic at the root will grow bigger. If you harvest them just before they actually turn to a flower you can use them to plant the next crop.

Yes, but get the mulch in place before a sudden change in temperature or a major snowfall. If you plant early and don't use mulch, some shoots may appear and die when the freeze hits. This is not ideal, but the garlic will probably survive.

Lay thick mulch over top. I live in a place that gets down to -40 in the winter. I plant the garlic in the fall about 2 inches under the soil. Then I mulch with straw or wood chip mulch - about 9-12 inches. In the spring I leave the mulch in place and the garlic comes up through the mulch. I have been doing this method of planting for about 10 years with success.

No. Crop rotation is advisable to prevent pests and diseases, and to let the ground get its nutrients back.

It should take about six months. Plant before the shortest day, and harvest around the longest day.

Yes, though I am unsure about whether this will yield more cloves. Place a whole clove in enough water to cover a third of it and put it in the window sill (or somewhere else that gets consistent light and stays about the same temperature.)