In northern climates experiencing cold, snowy winters, garlic is normally planted in the fall and harvested the following year as a summer crop. Its sowing comes at a moment when there aren’t many other garden tasks competing for your attention which means that you can take the time to do it right and enjoy the process. You will see from the video above and the photos below that garlic is one of the easiest crops to plant. Once you’ve grown your own, you’ll never go back to buying it.
Step 1: Buy some seed garlic
Seed garlic can be purchased online or at farmers markets. You’ll want to look for hardneck varieties as they tend to be the most cold hearty.
Step 2: Break your bulbs up into single cloves. Each clove will grown into a new bulb.
Step 3: Loosen up the soil in your bed for planting
Although your garlic will go dormant over the winter, your cloves will already begin forming roots in the fall and you want to make it easy for them to have the water and nutrients they need to thrive.
Step 4: Level off your beds with a rake
Step 5: Begin making holes 2 inches deep
Step 6: Space your holes 6 inches away from each other in a grid pattern
Step 7: Place your garlic cloves pointy side up into the holes and cover with soil
Step 8: Cover your bed with a generous layer of organic mulch (leaves, pine needles, straw, etc.). That’s it!
