Planting garlic in November

Volunteers Jenny and Suzanne visited the Belmont Food Collaborative plot at the Rock Meadow Garden in the fall, to take advantage of one of those warm afternoons and put garlic in the ground for next summer’s crop.

Just before the ground froze for the long winter months, we started next spring’s new growth. We chose the largest cloves from last summer’s crop to plant.

We cleared the bed of weeds, leaves and plant debris, and raked it smooth. Then we marked out a grid 6 inches by 6 inches and placed each clove in a hole about 4 inches deep. The cloves went in base down and tip up.

After covering them with soil, we added a light layer of compost, to help feed the garlic. Then we spread a layer of salt marsh hay over the bed, again, about 6 inches high. The salt marsh hay is intended to protect the garlic from repeated freeze/thaw cycles during the winter. We could have waited for the ground to freeze before spreading the hay, thus insulating the frozen ground. But we were worried we might forget, and it’s always worked to spread the hay at the time of planting.

The cloves will begin putting down roots, and the tips will start to grow in the spring. We use stiffneck varieties, so the earliest product of the plants will be the scapes they put out in early summer.

Read more about how to plant garlic on the Community Growing website.