Growing Garlic in the Backyard is Easy

Garlic

We have been growing garlic in our backyard for 3 years. We purchased bulbs once and will never need to purchase them again. We just hold back 5 or 6 bulbs each year for replanting.

This is "Music" garlic. It's a hard neck variety and a very popular seller for growing garlic in colder climates like mine. We plant right after the first frost in the fall, mulch the bed with about 8 inches of mulch and water occasionally. It will begin to sprout when the spring temperatures rise into the 40's.

Spring Planting Update

Here are a few pictures from our backyard urban gardening efforts:

We planted garlic in a bed around the perimeter of our deck in late-October 2012.
At this point we ahve 29 shoots of garlic well established and a few more developing.

The bulbs were covered with 4 inches of mulch.
We had lots of snow, but the garlic is doing well.

Strawberries in containers.
The stawberries were mulched for over-wintering.

Growing Garlic in an Urban Backyard

Our backyard gardening efforts are winding down for 2012.  Today I harvested the last 50 - 60 jalapenos, 20-25 cubanelle peppers, 10 small to medium sized bell peppers, and 5 smallish butternut squash. We emptied, cleaned, and stored 5 of our 10 Earthboxes along with cleaning out pepper, mint, and spinach plants in half of the in-ground bed we have in the backyard. But lest you think our gardening for the year has ended, sit tight for additional details.

Several weeks ago we visited the Plymouth Farmer's Market and purchased some garlic scapes from Michigan Garlic Farm. My wife loves garlic and we cook with it a lot (although she did not particularly like the scapes). After talking with Les and Donna for 15 - 20 minutes at the farmer's market, my excitement for growing garlic was ignited. The Abel Family talks about garlic with so much energy and vitality that it's contagious. We purchased a few varieties from them for planting, although I forgot to ask specifics, and I also purchased another 1 lb from another source a little later on.

With some of the Earthboxes moved out of the normal "flower" beds that the previous homeowner installed, we now have room to plant some garlic! I planted most of our beds with the Music garlic variety and the remainder with the garlic we purchased from Michigan Garlic Farm.

Here are a few pictures (please excuse the picture quality from my cell phone):

It's my first attempt at garlic, so I am not really expecting spectacular results. If we have a few small successes, I'll be happy. The soil is supposed to be worked 18", but for my backyard I couldn't achieve that without some type of mechanical tiller (I don't own one), so I had to settle for a 7-8" base of worked soil, and another 4 inches of mulch on top. I planted to garlic about 5" inches deep.

We also have a second bed on the opposite side of the deck that was planted and mulched also.

For any of the garlic pro's that might read this post later, I apologize if I have violated any written or unwritten laws of growing garlic successfully. Sometimes when conditions are less than perfect, I employe the Nike strategy and go into Larry Cable Guy mode of just getting it done. Most of the time, I achieve some level of success in spite of myself. I've got my fingers crossed! :-)

Is anyone else growing garlic this fall?