A head of garlic, like tulips or daffodils, is a bulb you can plant in the fall, but it offers more than just beauty. You can harvest the flower stalk and the bulb as well.
According to Emma Erler, lead horticulturist at Kirkwood Gardens at Squam Lakes Natural Science Center and host of Homegrown NH, garlic grows well in New Hampshire, provided you follow a few guidelines in terms of when you plant and how you prepare the soil.
Garlic comes in two main forms: softneck garlic and hardneck garlic.
Softneck garlic is what we typically find at the grocery store, and most of that is actually grown in Northern California, which is a bit different climate-wise than New Hampshire. You can braid the leaves of softneck garlic and hang it in the kitchen. It is not as hardy in New Hampshire, however, and it's more difficult to grow.
Most NH growers will be successful growing hardneck garlic. While it might not result in a decorative braid, hardneck garlic produces a scape.
“A scape is the long, curly stalk that grows from the top of a hardneck garlic plant. And removing the scape before it flowers helps the garlic bulb grow larger,” says Erler.
You can stir-fry or saute the scapes in late spring or early summer for a mild garlic flavor.
Erler says garlic is pretty easy to grow in the right soil conditions. Garlic needs well-drained soil, much like other bulbs. If the soil is soggy, those cloves are going to rot. It also likes the soil to be nice and loose. So that means either tilling the soil in the fall or loosening it with a garden fork.
And you plant garlic around the same time that you’re planting other fall bulbs, like daffodils and tulips.
“You're going to want to wait until the ground starts to get cool,” says Erler. “Wait until the soil temperature is under 60 degrees, in mid October or so through mid-November, after a hard freeze but before the ground is frozen.”
In order to keep the garlic bulbs dormant until spring, Erler suggests putting a layer of mulch over top of them once the ground freezes. That will help suppress weeds in the spring, and will also help insulate the soil to keep the garlic happy over the winter.
There are several varieties of garlic that do consistently well in New Hampshire. Erler favors three varieties with unusual names: Music, German Extra Hardy, and Russian Red. “There are many others, but those three are really tried and true,” she says.
See you in the garden!
Homegrown NH is a collaboration between Squam Lakes Natural Science Center and NHPR.
