How to Grow Garlic: A Complete Organic Growing Guide

I love to grow garlic- and lots of it! Not only does it help keep the bad bugs out of my garden, but it also helps my family fight off bad bugs during cold and flu season.

Gotta love this versatile vegetable that provides all-natural organic pest control, wonderful culinary flavor, and great health benefits! Here are a few key tips and tricks to grow the perfect organic garlic this year.

In this guide, you’ll learn about varieties of garlic, if you can plant garlic from the grocery store, when and how to plant garlic, and how to grow garlic with up to 75% greater yields!

Fall Gardening

Garlic planting season is a little bittersweet for me. A lot of stuff is on its way out of the garden, but seeds of optimism are being planted for next season.

After growing a fall garden, harvesting onions, harvesting pumpkins & winter squash, harvesting corn, and harvesting carrots at the right time, planting garlic is the thing that seems to seal my hope for next year’s garden.

Understanding Different Varieties of Garlic

There are hundreds of varieties of garlic, but they can all be categorized into two main types of garlic: softneck and hardneck.

Pro-Tip: Elephant Garlic is not another type of garlic but a leek that produces enormous bulbs with a mild garlic-like flavor.

Planting Seed Garlic Vs Garlic From the Grocery Store

When it comes to planting garlic, I like to stress that you should plant seed garlic instead of store-bought garlic. I’m not saying you can’t plant garlic from the store; people have successfully done that. What I am saying is that your likelihood of success decreases greatly when you plant store-bought garlic.

Grocery store garlic is often not grown here in the US, and garlic grown internationally usually has the basal plate drilled out (which is where the roots come out of the garlic head).

That is because US quarantine laws state that all imported garlic must have foreign debris (like soil) removed to prevent the introduction of foreign-born diseases, pests, and fungi that would harm our agricultural industry. If you plant garlic with the basal plate drilled out, you are planting damaged garlic that is much more likely to rot.

Even if you purchase undamaged US-grown garlic from the store, you’ll mostly find just one variety: white porcelain garlic from California. This brings me to the second reason I recommend planting seed garlic, and that is biodiversity. Biodiversity is important to an organic, healthy garden and essential for maintaining healthy ecosystems.

And lastly, what you find in the store is culinary garlic (not seed stock garlic). The difference between the two has to do with the size of the bulbs.

Undersized heads of garlic (not large enough to be desirable for planting) are sold as culinary garlic because they are better eaten than used to start new plants. Trust me when I say, planting seed stock garlic is the better way to go.

When to Plant Garlic for Optimal Growth

Don’t plant too early! I wish I had known that as a beginning gardener. I would plant my garlic as soon as my summer crops were done in late August, and I consistently had poor results because I planted too early.

Plant garlic 20-30 days before your first frost in the fall. (The Farmers Almanac is a reliable online resource for finding first and last frost dates by zip code.) I usually plant my garlic in October and harvest it in July.

Planting any earlier than that and the garlic will begin to grow in the fall, which puts stress on the plant. Any later and the garlic won’t have enough time to get established, meaning you lose valuable growing time in the spring.

Pro-Tip: If you live in a region without frost, try vernalization. Vernalization is the process of mimicking frost to trick the garlic into being ready for planting. For the best results, leave your garlic in the fridge for 3-4 weeks before planting.

How to Plant Garlic Step-by-Step

Follow these steps for garlic growing success:

1.  Location  - Choose a location where garlic will get 6-8 hours of full sun during the growing season. Garlic can withstand temperatures as low as -30°F in the winter and will begin to sprout and grow after the thaw between 32°F and 50°F.

2.  Soil pH - Garlic likes a pH between 6.0 and 7.5. Use this guide to test your soil pH.

3.  Amend the Soil  - Amending the soil could not be more important to the health and vitality of your garlic! Amend with pure, finished compost for rich, loose, well-draining soil. I like to add an all-purpose fertilizer (like  Trifecta+ ) at this time to raise the natural fertility and nutrient levels.  Pro-Tip: It is important to re-amend your soil after every crop. You may have amended your soil in the spring, but you should do it again before planting garlic in the fall. You always want to give back to the soil to replace what you are taking out! 

4.  Separate Cloves  - Each garlic bulb will have multiple cloves attached to the basal plate. Break off the individual cloves, but do not remove the last layer of papery skin from the cloves. Each clove should be planted separately. Don’t plant any cloves that are squishy, rotten, or damaged.  Pro-Tip: To ensure that you grow the largest, healthiest heads of garlic, choose the largest, healthiest cloves of seed garlic for planting.

5.  Plant Spacing - Individual cloves should be planted about 3 to 3 1/2 inches apart. That distance is the sweet spot for maximizing the amount of garlic you can plant in a space without overcrowding.  Pro-Tip: Use a dibbler or trowel to make holes where you will plant each clove.

6.  Planting Depth  - Plant each clove with the base pointing down and the point up. Garlic only needs to be planted about 1 to 1 ½ inches deep. Any deeper than that will smother your garlic.

7.  Fertilizing - I also add one pound of powdered sulfur per 16 square feet over the newly planted garlic rows using  Bulb+. The sulfur alters the pH, making it more acidic, and reduces the chance that mold, mildew, or fungus will damage the garlic.

8.  Rake  - Gently rake over the top to turn some of the sulfur into the soil. 

9.  Mulch  - Throw a light layer of mulch over your newly planted garlic.  Applying a mulch layer after planting will help retain moisture and protect it. I usually use pine animal bedding to mulch garlic.

10. Watering  - Water well after planting. After the frost thaws in the spring, garlic needs approximately 1 inch of water per week and more later in the season as it becomes larger and the weather gets hotter.

How to Grow Garlic That Is 75% Larger

If you grow hardneck garlic, the plants will form scapes. That takes energy away from the bulbs. Harvesting the garlic scapes as they form will increase your bulb size by up to 75%!

To harvest scapes, cut or break the scapes off early in the morning. Water your garlic plants after harvesting the scapes.

Scapes taste like garlic meets asparagus. If you aren’t sure how to prepare them once you have them in your kitchen, you’ve got to try this Garlic Scape Pesto on pasta.

Harvesting Your Garlic Crop

To harvest garlic, simply pull it up by the stalk. Here is a blog post on when garlic is ready to harvest so that you get the timing just right.

Keep track of your garlic growing journey from year to year. Note your planting dates, weather, and harvests in a journal or garden planner. With patience and practice, you'll get better and better at growing garlic.