I Never Have Enough Garlic
By Idelle Fisher
I love garlic and grow it casually in my gardens, but I should get more serious about it. Garlic is very easy to grow in Colorado. My friend gave me some hardneck garlic bulbs many years ago from her patch in her Park Hill, Denver garden. (She thought it was decorative grass for over a decade before realizing it was garlic.) I eagerly took some bulbs and scapes and went to work planting them around in my perennial flower beds and edges of vegetable beds. They have taken quite well. In fact, hardneck garlic spreads around readily, especially if you let the scapes mature to produce bulbils.
If I was better about saving and separating some of the bulbs and planting them every fall with proper space, they would produce bigger bulb heads, but I freestyle it so I get bulbs of all sizes. I don’t dig up all of the garlic each season, usually leaving the small-stemmed younger garlic in the ground, and it keeps growing wild in my perennial beds. The tell-tale sign it’s not grass are its reddish thicker stems close to the ground and, of course, the curlycue garlic scapes that come later which are great for pesto. I also harvest the tender, green garlic leaves in early spring, which are great for soups, stir fries and any recipes that call for garlic.
Finally, in mid to late June the leaves start to brown. I dig up the garlic that has thicker stems – the thicker the stem, the bigger the bulb head – in late June/early July. I dry it on the concrete floor in our garage for a few weeks. Once dry, I trim the roots and remove any loose dirt, and store them in a cardboard box in a dark place in our basement. It usually lasts all summer, but I never grow enough!
Green hardneck garlic growing in the fall from bulbils Garlic has flat leaves, and they are delicious for cooking First year garlic bulbs grown from bulbils. Small, but tasty! Harvest garlic when about one-third to one-half of the lower leaves turn brown in early summer. Mature hardneck garlic scape bulbils splitting open, these are ready to save for planting. Garlic does well in containers, too! For the biggest individual garlic bulbs, space your cloves 6 to 8 inches apart in all directions.
Hardneck garlic is a gift that just keeps giving, and it’s nice to get three different harvests out of it each season. It's wise to also let a few scapes mature until the bulbils are easily separated. Plant the small bulbils for more free garlic – they grow to a small single bulb the first year, then create a whole head of bulbs in their second year.
I’ve heard that Softneck garlic stores longer, while my stored Hardneck usually lasts through the end of summer. I’ll pick up some new softneck bulbs and see how it goes.
Seed garlic isn’t cheap, but it’s worth it when you enjoy the harvest. If you want to grow garlic inexpensively, save enough of your homegrown cloves to plant each fall, as well as allowing hardneck garlic scapes to mature for plenty of bulbils. You’ll have an endless supply for years to come.
