Tips for planting garlic and spring-flowering bulbs

I was up in the Adirondacks a few days ago and it was at full, or peak coloration. We are still a week or so away from that stage here, but if it is even half as nice as what I just observed, we are in for a treat!

We now have also had more than enough rain to almost erase our deficit for 2022, at least at my house, with more than eight inches recorded in my rain gauge this past month. When and “if” the soil dries out a bit, I will try to get my 2023 garlic crop planted as soon as possible. The best time to plant garlic in our region is mid-September to mid-October. I can wait a week or two, but the window is closing.

Most of the garlic we consume in the United State is grown in California, near a city called Gilroy (the garlic capital of the U.S.). Their garlic crop is typically planted in early spring and harvested in the fall. Our growing season is a bit too short for spring planting, but we get very good results with fall planting, resulting in a late

July harvest the following summer.

The planting site should be tilled or spaded to a depth of six inches. Don’t try to till soggy, wet, soil, especially if the soil texture is heavy, with lots of clay. You can seriously damage your soil structure by tilling under those conditions and it may take years to recover. I think raised beds, at least six inches above grade, with several inches of peat moss tilled in, provide the best conditions. Try to remove all perennial weeds before you plant. Garlic does not compete all that well with weeds.

Garlic likes fertile soil, high in organic matter with a pH of 6.0 to 7.5. Check your pH and add lime if necessary. Most garden beds that have been amended with organic matter, or manure or compost, will have pH of 6.0, or higher. Four pounds of 5-10-10 fertilizer should be raked into each 100-foot of row, or 100 square feet of bed, prior to planting. Organic gardeners can substitute 20 pounds of composted manure or four pounds of cottonseed meal, plus four pounds of bone meal, instead of the 5-10-10.

Ideally, you would have purchased your planting stock from Upstate New York growers at the garlic festival in Saugerties recently, but some local garden centers and roadside stands also sell garlic for planting. You can also purchase garlic to plant from some local health food stores or groceries that sell organic garlic. In a pinch, the garlic you buy at the supermarket will also work, but perhaps not as well. Regardless of where you get your planting stock or how it was grown, your garlic will be organic if you grow it without chemical fertilizers or chemical pesticides.

Keep the garlic bulbs intact and dry until you are ready to plant. Separate the bulbs into individual cloves and pick out the largest five or six cloves per bulb for planting. (Most garlic bulbs have 10 to 15 cloves) If some of the cloves have already sprouted a green tip, that is good. Plant the individual cloves pointy side up with the tip of the cloves about one inch below the soil surface. Space the cloves from 4 to 6 inches apart in the row depending upon how large the cloves are. Elephant garlic cloves should be spaced at least 8 inches apart, while the smaller varieties can be planted 4 inches apart in a row.

With some warmer weather, the garlic will sprout and grow a few inches tall before the ground begins to freeze in late November. Cover the row with about 4 inches of loose straw for winter protection after planting. Remove the straw next April, keep the area well-weeded and watered and harvest the garlic in late July.

Spring-flowering bulbs are a little bit easier to grow, but if you go through the same procedure as I told you for preparing the garlic bed, you will have great success with them as well. Generally, you can just plant the bulbs in holes that are twice as deep as the bulb is thick, without going through all the site preparation and you should still get good results.

For a three-inch diameter tulip or daffodil bulb, the hole needs to be about seven inches deep. For a one-inch crocus or snowdrop bulb, the planting depth is only 2 to 3 inches. Sprinkle a tablespoon of bone meal and a teaspoon of dried blood meal in the bottom of the hole or use a teaspoon of 5-10-10. Remember that only daffodils and crown imperial are deer-resistant.