My Garlic is UP!
What Should I Do???
As the weather warms up, you will see the garlic that you planted in November emerge from the soil. It looks like the tip of a daffodil bulb emerging or a very thick grass blade. Each clove happily extended its root system last year in the weeks before the ground froze. Now the stem of the plant has enough energy to burst out and reach for the light.
Poke around in the mulch to find the shoots but don’t remove the mulch. You can gently move the mulch back to just expose the shoots. It’s still cold at night, so keep the soil around them covered. I have found that sometimes the shoots are bent under the mulch and need to be unburied to allow them to straighten up and turn green. Don’t bend them up yourself as they will break off. As the weather warms up, and if your mulch is thicker than about 2-3 inches, remove some of it and use it elsewhere. You want to let the soil warm up and thick mulch will keep it cold and slow down the growth.
Amending the Soil in Spring
Give a dose of nitrogen when plants are a few inches tall. If you bought CT Seedlings’ 2 part soil amendment mix in the fall, you can scuffle the spring bag into the bed where the garlic is growing. That bag will cover a 4×8 foot space. The other plants in that bed will appreciate the nutrition too. Use your amendment mix in proportion to the size of your garlic bed. Garlic also loves to be foliar fed by spraying the emerging shoots with kelp, fish emulsion or other liquid. Mix in a few drops of gentle soap so the material sticks to the leaves. As the leaves grow taller, you want to see a deep green color and a thick stem. It the leaves look a little yellowish they need some nitrogen. Blood meal, alfalfa, stinging nettle feed or another good shot of foliar feeding will help.
Growing On
Garlic needs good sunlight and barely moist soil. No need to water yet – CT soil is still plenty moist. A good rule of thumb is if the soil feels moist when you poke your finger down 2 or 3 inches, no need to water. Garlic doesn’t like to be wet, and we generally get enough rain in the spring. Small weeds don’t bother garlic much but big grass clumps and other big perennial plants do compete for water and nutrients, so get them out.
Eat the Scapes
In June your garlic plants will send up a flower stalk that looks like a thick curly stem with a bulbous tip. This is a garlic scape! After a couple of weeks the scape will curl under and that’s when you can cut them off. Just cut the scape itself; avoid cutting a leaf. Use the tender part chopped in salad dressing, roasted vegetables, saute, sauce, grilled, or in pesto. They taste like bright, mild garlic. If you don’t cut the scape off, the bulb of garlic will be smaller, but it may store better long term.
Harvest and Storage
In July the plants will start to yellow from the bottom up. When there are fewer than 5 green leaves, pull bulbs gently or dig with a fork and brush dirt off of the roots. DON’T REMOVE THE ROOTS AND DON’T PEEL ANY OF THE SKIN OFF YET! If you have space, lay the plants in a cool, dry place with good airflow. Make sure they’re not touching to prevent mold or rot. Hanging them in 5-plant bunches is just fine. We planted hard-neck garlic, which stores well hanging in bunches. If you planted soft-neck garlic as well, you can braid it to store it. I have no idea how to do that, but you’ll find a million homesteader blogs and channels that would love to teach you.
You can use the bulb any time after it’s been harvested. Letting them dry down will allow you to store them over the fall and winter.
