JW: Garlic. It has an unmistakable aroma and flavor. It's sometimes called the “Stinking Rose.” It's also good for our health. And of course it does keep vampires away --which is good for this time of year! I'm Judy Wagley, this is “From the Ground Up!” Recently, Peggy Brisbane told us about planting bulbs. Well guess what? Garlic is a bulb! So if you want tasty, homegrown garlic next summer, you need to plant it now. My guest on “From the Ground Up!” today is Andrew Curtiss from Showtiss Farm in Shepherd. Thanks for joining me today.
AC: Thanks, Judy. It's good to be here.
JW: You grow beautiful garlic that I've purchased at the farmers market. So let's start from the ground up. How do we grow garlic?
AC: Yeah, Judy, the first thing you're gonna want to do when growing garlic is get a soil test. Obviously at this point in the fall, you might not have time for a soil test. So I'll have some recommendations for how to grow garlic without a soil test. But soil tests are essential for all gardening. It gonna tell you what you have in your soil for nutrients. That way you can take what your soil is lacking for nutrients and add those so your garlic has its best potential for big bulbs and great success. But if you can't have a soil test, I recommend around two pounds of triple 12, that’s 12-12-12 fertilizer per 100 square feet.
JW: So that's preparing our soil for garlic. But how do we get this garlic to plant?
AC: Mostly seed garlic is sold online. Seed garlic is garlic that bulbs are two inches in size plus. And so you'll order that from a garlic farm and they'll ship it to your door. And then once you have your garlic in hand, you're gonna break the bulbs apart. The garlic I grow is Music and German White. German White has about four to six cloves per bulb; Music has around six to eight cloves per bulb. And then each individual clove is going to become a garlic plant next year.
JW: Yeah, years ago when I was starting to grow garlic, a farmer told me the bigger is a clove the bigger the bulb-- meaning you want to plant the biggest cloves to get the biggest bulbs next summer.
AC: Absolutely. And when you plant your garlic, you're gonna want to plant your garlic around four inches deep into a well tilled soil and you want the pointy end up. As you break your bulbs apart, you'll see the root end will come apart and there'll be a flat spot there where the roots were the previous spring. And the pointy end is going to go up, and that's going to become the top of your future garlic plant.
JW: Do we need to peel those cloves?
AC: No, you do not peel the cloves You leave the skin right on that skin is going to be a protective layer through the winter as that that bulb is growing.
JW: And to make it clear, we don't want to just buy garlic at the grocery store and plant that.
AC: Yeah, garlic at the grocery store is smaller. It's called “culinary garlic.” That'll be like one and a half inches and below. And culinary garlic is good for cooking, but it's going to have smaller bulbs. And it's not going to produce large cloves or large bulbs of garlic next year.
JW: Okay, so we've dug our hole four inches deep, we plant that clove pointy side up. We cover it up, then what?
AC: Yeah, so once you've covered it and you've put that four inches of dirt back over the top, you're going to want to put some either leaf litter or straw over the top. And what that does is it acts as an insulation blanket. And that that blanket is going to protect your garlic. You want that garlic to start growing around six to eight inches of roots into December. And then if the ground doesn't freeze, it'll continue to send roots down throughout the winter. But it won't grow green stuff out the top until about March. And so what happens is that blanket insulates your soil. In late March one year I didn't get enough insulation on and my garlic had begun growing it was six to eight inches high, and we got about a 19 degree night and it froze the ground so hard that it raised the bulbs and snapped the roots of the garlic off and I lost my whole garlic crop. Yeah, it can happen. So you want to make sure you're getting a good layer of straw on the top.
JW: And then that garlic is one of the very first things up in the spring, and it's so amazing that it has worked so hard under the snow all winter!
AC: Yeah, so then I go in late March and I roll that straw off and yep, you'll see like one inch shoots of garlic coming out of the top of the ground. By the end of April my garlic will be 12 to 18 inches high. I usually apply fertilizer weekly through my irrigation system from spring greenup in late March till the garlic scapes. if you don't have an irrigation system for fertigation that's fine. You can do what's called broadcasting. You can broadcast your fertilizer in late March. And what will happen is those nutrients will work down into the garlic roots with the rain and your garlic will grow like wild!
JW: and it grows and grows and grows until about July, and then what happens?
AC: Yep, yeah, starting in mid-June and into early July, you'll see out of the center of your garlic leaves what looks like a pigtail. It comes up and it's called a garlic scape. And those garlic scapes, you're going to break those off and use them just like you would minced garlic. Chop them up, saute them. They're excellent roasted in the oven. We make pickled garlic scapes. Don't waste them, don't lose them. Use them. They're, beneficial for you and for growing your garlic.
JW: Why is it important to snap off those scapes?
AC: Yeah. So what happens when you snap that garlic scape off is a signals to your garlic plant, that it's no longer going to be able to produce viable seed. And so that garlic will then begin to send all of its energy from its leaves into producing a large bulb. So that bulb is in essence, the garlic saying, “I'm going to die. I have to put all my energy into the future.” And that bulb is now the future. The seed is no longer viable because that's been snapped off. So it'll send its energy into the bulb. And that bulb will get large, and what you want in garlic is big bulbs.
JW: Yes, yes. So we're going underground here with the garlic! And then eventually, what's above ground there just starts to turn brown and flop over. And then that's when it's time to dig it up, right?
AC: Yeah, Judy. So after removing the scapes, I usually stop fertilizing. And about two weeks after that, I no longer water the garlic at all. And what happens is that garlic, you'll see the bottom sets of leaves will begin to dry up and when you have two to three sets of leaves that have turned brown and dried, it's time to dig the garlic. To dig garlic, the best is with a pitchfork alongside of it, you're going to step it into the ground and you're gonna pull and loosen the garlic so that it can be pulled up. If you just grab the stem of the garlic and yank, there's a chance that you'll rip the stem of the hard neck right out and the bulbs will be left right in the soil. So you want to loosen your soil. On the farm we use under cutter, but for the average home gardener a shovel or a pitchfork will work just fine. And then what happens after you've harvested your garlic, now it's time to cure the garlic. I like to take my garlic and I hang it in the eaves of our barn. And I'll leave it in there for two to three weeks. And what you're looking to do is have it just to kind of air cure. You could lay it on screens or something along those lines, but you want it to just to dry up and cure.
JW: And then it stores for a while?
AC: Yeah, cured garlic has a seven to nine-month shelf life.
JW: Pretty easy to do--growing garlic.
AC: Yeah, it's my favorite thing to grow. It's simple. You weed it about twice. And it's the first thing out of the ground in the spring after a long winter in Central Michigan. It makes me happy to see it growing.
JW: And it tastes so good too-- so many ways to use it in the kitchen. Absolutely. Andrew Curtiss from Showtiss Farm in Shepherd. Thanks for giving us all of these great tips on growing our very own garlic.
AC: You're welcome, Judy. It's a pleasure to be here.
