After tasting homegrown garlic for the first time, I came up with a theory. I think famous chefs have access to really great garlic, which is why the rest of us have to use double, triple or quadruple the number of supermarket-bought cloves to get the flavour we’re after. With a punchier smell, juicier texture and a taste that hits the tongue with a kick, homegrown garlic is many orders of magnitude more delicious than the bulbs most of us can get hold of.
Garlic is an easy crop to grow, though it takes a while to transform from a clove (you grow next year’s garlic bulbs from this year’s cloves) into a bulb, and now is a great time to get them planted. There are two main types of garlic: soft neck produces small cloves, will keep for many months and, as the name suggests, is the kind of garlic that can be plaited together; hardneck is hardier, so good for cold areas. They produce cloves that are larger and more flavourful, but don’t keep as long.
Garlic wants rich, free-draining soil as soggy conditions can lead to disease, so since the clay soil in my patch is prone to becoming waterlogged, I’ve taken to growing my garlic in growbags of compost.
This approach also works better for me as garlic needs a relatively long time in the ground (about nine months) and I’m reluctant to have that precious space in my small veg patch occupied for so long. I place my growbags in the sunny but paved spots in my garden that would otherwise be underused.
Push each clove 2-3cm into the earth, pointy side up, about 15cm apart. Keep them well watered when there hasn’t been much rain, keep the weeds down, and your garlic will pretty much take care of itself.
You can sow many varieties until January. The later you sow, the later they’ll be ready; you can also try sowing rounds a few weeks apart for a staggered harvest. The key is planting in time for the cloves to be exposed to a longish period of cold before spring arrives (a process called vernalisation). This is what prompts a bulb to develop.
I have grown hard-neck Morado garlic, which produced great bulbs, but they were outshone by soft-neck Germidor, grown from seventh-generation cloves given to me by my friend and expert garlic grower Becky.
Seed garlic looks very similar to supermarket garlic, but resist the urge to plant the grocery cloves as they may not grow well in this climate or, worse, may carry diseases. It’s worth forking out for good-quality garlic that has been bred for growing. Then, next summer, when it is ready to harvest, keep hold of a bulb or two to plant the following autumn/winter – and for future seasons’ use.
