How to Grow Garlic in Cold Climates

Growing underground vegetables is one of my favorite things in life. In my experience, they usually require the least amount of hands on care, YET they require the most patience! Unlike tomatoes, you can’t just look and see how the development is going – you have to wait until all the signs point to maturity. Sometimes it’s guesswork, sometimes it’s experience. 

Luckily, garlic is one of those root crops that has tell-tale signs that let you know when it is ready to harvest. Does anyone else feel like they are on the tastiest treasure hunt ever unearthing these gems?!

In this article, I’d like to walk you through my steps to growing a great crop of garlic. I have a couple of years under my belt now and feel like I have learned a whole lot of tips and tricks along the way. But why keep these tricks to myself when I can share with you, my dedicated readers? 

Shall we get right to it?

Why Should I Grow Garlic?

If you came across this article, chances are you are already wanting to grow your own garlic. So I probably don’t need to go into too much detail about why you should grow garlic in the first place. BUT! If you stumbled upon this article just by happenstance, here’s the deets:

Garlic is delicious. 

The End.

Okay, garlic actually has another job in my garden besides just making my taste buds tingle. It’s actually a GREAT pest control method. So many critters can’t stand garlic, for a similar reason why strong smelling herbs work so well as insect repellents : It stinks!

I have intentionally planned my garlic plantings this year to be next to other crops that could utilize its pest-deterring smells. Crops that otherwise, I find that pests tend to devour before I can even harvest anything. Or, crops that are way too inviting for damaging bugs like squash bugs or beetles that have previously devastated my peach trees. So far so good!

How Does Garlic Grow?

Here’s the basic rundown of how garlic grows, from planting to harvesting:

In the fall, you’ll plant your cloves. Each head of garlic may have anywhere from a few cloves to a few dozen depending on the variety. The cloves will spend those first few weeks developing a root system. As the ground freezes and winter sets in, the growth will stop. By early spring, the cloves will come back from dormancy and use some of that stored up energy to send up the first green shoots. You can expect them to spend the next few months growing taller and greener. Once the timing is right, they’ll begin to really fill out and develop a bulb underground. Expect this whole process to take anywhere between 8 to 10 months. I typically plant my garlic in late October, and harvest somewhere around late June or July.

Garlic Categories

Not all garlic is created equal. 

Simply speaking, there are two main types of garlic: hardneck and softneck. Hardneck varieties generally produce big, thick stalks in the middle of the head of garlic (hard neck. Get it?) while softneck varieties do not grow a thick stem. Hardneck varieties are usually my go-to choice for cold tolerance, though I’ve come across some really tough soft ones. Softneck varieties are the best type for long term storage, plus with their softer stem, you can braid them together after harvesting. 

There’s also another not often talked about ‘type’ of garlic that you know as elephant garlic. Did you know that elephant garlic is actually a type of leek? I didn’t either until this year, don’t worry. But it grows in a similar way as garlic, so don’t completely write it off.

Here in the high desert of Colorado, we deal with a few tough weather patterns. Not only do we experience really bitter cold winters, we then often experience very dry summers. Garlic is pretty tough, but not all garlic varieties are suited for such tough growing conditions. 

Ordering Seed Garlic

In my experience, the best seed garlic sources (seed garlic referencing garlic grown and selected specifically to replant the following year, aka the best of the best) sell out very quickly. I have two go-to garlic growers, Filaree Garlic Farm and Mad River Garlic Growers. If I’m correct, both tend to open their stores early to mid summer. 

Any good local nursery will also likely carry a few good varieties suited to your climate, often in late summer.

Typically, seed garlic is priced by weight. Make sure to read descriptions about the types you’re thinking of getting – 1 whole pound of garlic may give you dozens of cloves, while with a different variety it might only give you less than 10 cloves for planting!

All this to say: do just a bit of research a few months before the cold weather sets in. That way you know which varieties you want and you have ample time to get what you need before everyone sells out.

When and How Do I Plant My Garlic?

Garlic is pretty forgiving as far as planting times. You can plant it “way too early” according to standards and you’ll still get garlic come summer. Or, you can accidentally forget to put it in the ground all winter, stick it haphazardly in the ground in spring…and be able to harvest some garlic come summer.

But, if you want to harvest the biggest and best garlic come summer, you’ll want to time your planting with your first hard freeze. That is, the time of year that the ground freezes.

You want to aim to get your garlic planted about 3 weeks prior to the first hard freeze. This is to give your cloves a head start on root development without giving them too much time to shoot up a bunch of green growth above ground. Timing your planting in this way sets your cloves up for success come early spring, when they start waking up again. They’ll have a good amount of energy built up inside that clove to explode with growth when the time is right, instead of wasting it before winter even sets in.

Forgot to plant your garlic before winter set in? That’s okay. You can plant it in early spring, but just know that you will not get a large bulb with developed cloves. You may just get a larger than usual clove. But hey, it’ll still taste amazing!

When you are ready to plant, gently separate the cloves from each other, assuming you ordered a head or two (or twelve…) of seed garlic. Try your best to keep the paper intact – this’ll help protect those cloves in the ground and prevent them from rotting in the ground.

As far as spacing the cloves apart, take note of the size of the head of garlic you are planting. I wouldn’t say there is any magic measurement when it comes to spacing. You just want to make sure they have enough room around them to mature completely! This year, I went for more of an intensive planting system – I left just enough room around each clove for them to mature. You can plant garlic in grids like me, or in rows with space in between to plant a few other companion plants, like carrots.

You want to bury your cloves at least 2 inches into the soil. Make sure the pointy side is up, and the flatter, rougher side is face down – that’s where the roots will develop.

Mulching Your Garlic

With our aforementioned crazy temperature swings we get here in Colorado throughout the year, mulching our garlic is an important step to success. 

After planting the cloves and marking where they are (trust me, make sure you remember where you planted your garlic!) I like putting a healthy layer of mulch on top. 

Mulch can be many materials, so don’t let someone tell you that you must use the pre-labeled bags of mulch sold at big box stores. It can be shredded leaves, mowed and mulched grass, straw, woodchips, compost… the main point is to cover your soil. Think of it like tucking your garlic in for a long, cold winter. By providing them with mulch, you’re helping them handle drastic temperature swings over the next few months.

Come springtime, once I see most of my cloves are sprouting new green growth and most of the bitter cold weather is behind us, I’ll remove most of the mulch. This prevents any smothering action. And it helps that new tender green growth break through the surface. You can choose to leave some mulch in place over summer as well to help water retention if you are in a really dry place with minimal rainfall. I typically remove 99% of my mulch before the next step, just because we tend to get into monsoon season come mid to late summer – the last thing you want is your ready-to-harvest garlic sitting in wet soil!

Feeding Your Garlic

Just as your garlic will be feeding you in the near future, it would appreciate a few feedings come spring.

Once I start seeing green growth in early spring and I remove some mulch, I like to spread a layer of compost across the entire planting area.

Keep in mind compost can be used as a mulch, so try not to make it too thick. No smothering happening here!

If you do not have access to compost, try to aim for a different organic fertilizer like fish & kelp emulsion. Basically, you are giving your growing cloves an occasional boost of diluted nitrogen to promote healthy green growth in the beginning of the growing season.

Later in the spring or early summer, once your garlic has quite a few sets of healthy looking leaves, you’ll want to hold off on giving them any further fertilization. Any more fertilizer will promote more green growth, but we are wanting them to direct the rest of their growing energy towards developing big, healthy bulbs underground!

If you are growing hardneck garlic, they let you know when they’ve had enough food when they start developing scapes. Only hardneck varieties develop scapes, so don’t expect to see any on your softneck varieties.

What are scapes? Usually around oh, late May here, I’ll usually start seeing a little curly stem type growth coming out of the top of my hardneck garlic plants. If you let these grow out completely, they’ll turn into flower heads. 

But that’s not what we’re after. And luckily, scapes are delicious. Do a quick google search and you can see there are so many tasty testimonies and ways to use them.

When to Water, When to Not

Just like any other plant in your garden, garlic appreciates a regular watering schedule. To promote deep root growth, I prefer giving my garlic a few slow, deep waterings a week. 

Earlier, I mentioned that you do not want a ready-to-harvest garlic bulb sitting in wet soil. To ensure proper curing and storage capacity (we’ll talk about that here next!) you want to try to keep excess moisture away from your plants. This will allow the papery skin layers to develop and do their job to keep the tender cloves safe. So, I’ll hold off watering in the last few weeks prior to harvesting. 

How Do I Know When To Harvest?

Take note of what the bottom sets of leaves look like. If you have followed the previous steps, you should begin seeing the bottom sets of leaves turn yellow and dry up little by little. Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong! This is your way of knowing your garlic is getting close to being ready to pull! It is using the last of its energy and directing it straight to the bulb instead of the leaves. 

Once the bottom half of the garlic’s leaves are yellow and dead looking, that’s when I pull it. At this point, it should be mature enough and have developed a full head of garlic from that single clove you planted in the fall last year.

Enjoy this step. It’s SO SATISFYING pulling garlic out of the ground and seeing those big, beautiful heads.

Curing & Storage

After the pure joy wears off from the previous step, you might be thinking “well, gee. I now have 107 heads of garlic. What am I going to do with all of it?”

Wait, you didn’t grow 107 heads of garlic this year? Only me? Well then…

Regardless, you aren’t quite done yet in your quest to filling your pantry with loads of fresh garlic. It now requires a period of curing, which prepares and hardens the outer skin of the garlic to ensure it is ready to be stored for a long period of time.

To do this, gently brush any excess clumps of dirt off of the garlic as you are pulling it. But do so very carefully, you want to keep the outer papery layers in place! Collect your garlic and place it in a shady and dry location for a couple of weeks. You can do this in a few ways – my go-to is to hang it up via clothespins on a clothesline under my covered porch. This ensures plenty of airflow and keeps it protected from rain and weather. 

After a week or two, or when the outside of the garlic is completely dry, it’s ready to store! If you have softneck garlic, you can braid the tops together in a beautiful garlic braid and just snip off the heads as you need to use them. If you grew hardneck varieties, you’ll want to snip off the tops and the roots. 

Remember, hardneck garlic does not store as long as softneck garlic does. Softneck garlic can last you until the next harvest if the storage conditions are correct. Hardneck garlic tends to go soft and start sprouting for me during the winter months.

With enough patience, garlic is truly one of the easiest crops you can grow in your garden this year! Let me know if you have any further questions about growing this wonderful food.

Happy growing,

Becca

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