For a week every August Squak Mt’s owners would pack up their kids and head off to Central Oregon to see Becky’s family. Grandma’s house was the touchstone for all family activity and all the grandkids would spend hours playing outside, the intoxicating scent of about to be harvested garlic wafting in the air.
While our family grew acres of the bulbous flavor enhancer, it is super easy to grow garlic at home, in your own garden. And fall is the perfect time to grow this edible allium for harvest in the early summer. Here is an easy step by step guide to growing garlic.
- Break bulb into cloves. You will be planting only the largest cloves from the bulb of garlic.
- Work a handful of good organic fertilizer into the hole you have made in your soil.
- Plant pointy side up, 2” deep and about 3-4” apart.
- The garlic will begin to break ground, sending up little shoots that will remain that way until they really get going in spring.
- In February feed with more organic fertilizer and some fish fertilizer. This will ensure rapid growth of the leaves.
- Keep the area weed free and evenly moist
- By Summer Solstice you should have a pretty big plant which will begin to harden off as it gets closer to time to harvest.
- Harvest your garlic when 1/3 to ½ of the leaves are dying back. Pop out of the ground and dry-cure out of the sun for at least two weeks. Your garage, in an open box is great. Rubbing off dirt is fine, but don’t wash or trim the roots.
- Once cured store in a cool, dry place.
- Enjoy your garlic!