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It’s incredibly easy to grow your own garlic, especially if you live in a cold-weather climate. In fact, it’s so simple to grow that you can plant it and basically forget about it until you harvest it nine months later.
It’s the perfect vegetable for beginning gardeners because it’s so forgiving, and advanced gardeners will like the challenge of growing large quantities to store over the winter.
And if you’re a gardener who also loves to cook from scratch, you likely already start many dishes by throwing chopped garlic and onions into a pan with oil. It’s the foundation of many different types of cuisine!
Sure, you can buy garlic from the grocery store, but it’s never as tasty as homegrown garlic. And most of it is grown in California and China.
When other gardeners ask me about my favorite vegetable to grow in my garden, garlic is up there as one of the top five. I plant around 220 bulbs every fall and harvest them in July.
I store them in my basement for the whole winter, and I haven’t used store-bought garlic in many, many years.
Unlike most other vegetables, garlic is planted in the fall, not the spring. If you live in a colder climate like mine in Wisconsin (zone 5), you should plant your garlic between mid-October and mid-November depending on the fall weather.
You have to plant before the ground freezes, but not so early that the bulbs begin to sprout.
As the climate warms I’ve been pushing my garlic planting back into November. I like to wait until I get a hard frost in my garden so I can clean out several garden beds of dead plant debris to make room for growing garlic.
Read all about how and when to plant your garlic for a spectacular harvest here.
(If you live in a warmer climate, read this and this for tips about growing garlic in your region.)
If you plan ahead this season you can grow your own garlic and have a year-round supply of bulbs with little effort. You’ll never have to buy garlic from the grocery store again!
To get you excited about garlic, I’m sharing 10 of the reasons why you’ll fall in love with growing it and permanently add it to your fall garden to-do list.
Garlic growing in my spring garden.
10 Reasons to Grow Your Own Garlic This Year
#1: It’s super low maintenance.
Once you plant and mulch your garlic in fall there’s very little to do until the harvest the following summer. The first main task is to keep it free of weeds, which is easy to do if you mulch it heavily after planting.
You should also make sure the plants get 1 inch of water per week in the spring. If you live in a climate that gets regular spring rains you may not have to do any supplemental watering.
But, if your garden goes through a dry period you’ll need to keep the garlic plants watered since they’re putting on a lot of growth in the spring.
Because it’s so low maintenance, garlic is a great choice for a garden that’s not located at your home, such as a community garden plot or friend’s backyard.
Garlic doesn’t require daily or weekly attention, so if you go long periods of time between visits to the garden your garlic won’t suffer.
#2: Garlic loves cold climates.
Where I live in Wisconsin winter lows can dip down to -40 degrees F in winter. I know, I ask myself why I live here every January and February!
There aren’t many vegetables that can survive in the garden through winter weather that brutal. But, garlic not only survives but thrives in cold climates.
In fact, it’s easier to grow your own garlic when you live in a cold climate as compared to a warm one.
#3: Minimal pests and diseases.
In my garden, garlic has always been pest and disease-free. This is a relief in the summer garden when many of us struggle with failing plants due to pest and disease pressure.
There are a handful of pests and diseases that do exist, but they’re not very common in the home garden.
Growing garlic will be a relief if you’ve had difficulty with other challenging to grow crops like carrots, sweet peppers, and cilantro.
#4: You can plant a lot in a small space.
Garlic can be planted 6” apart on all sides. That means you can fit a lot of garlic in one garden bed.
One of the challenges of a small garden is that it’s difficult to grow significant amounts of individual vegetables. Not true with garlic! In a 4′ x 4′ garden bed you could plant between 32 – 40 garlic cloves.
Depending on how often you eat garlic this could provide you with an entire winter’s worth.
If you garden in a larger space, you’ll be able to produce a substantial crop of garlic in minimal space.
For example, in my 1600 square foot home garden, I plant 220 cloves of garlic every fall.
This amount of garlic fills up two of my bigger garden beds. Those beds supply me with a year’s worth of garlic and plenty of cloves to plant for the next season.
Not a bad payback for so little space!
#5: There are lots of options to choose from.
When you shop at your local grocery store for garlic, you may notice that it all looks exactly the same. This is because most of the garlic grown for global production is softneck garlic of one or two varieties (or more accurately cultivars).
Personally, I don’t even grow any softneck garlic because the cloves are usually very small. I hate trying to peel and chop tiny cloves!
Instead, I prefer to grow larger cloves that are easier to work with in the kitchen.
Hardneck garlic, the other type, generally produces bigger individual cloves. I plant several different varieties of hardneck garlic in my garden and no softneck.
Within each type, hardneck and softneck, there are plenty of varieties to choose from. Some of my favorites are the red varieties that produce beautiful mottled colors on the garlic skins. (See above photo.) Check out Russian Red and Chesnok Red.
You can check out more of my favorite varieties on Etsy here and in my Amazon storefront.
Read more about how to choose the right varieties to grow in your garden in this post.
#6: It stores for a long time.
A fun garden challenge I pose to participants in my workshops is to pick a vegetable and see if you can grow all that you need for an entire year. Meaning – you never have to purchase it from the grocery store that year.
It’s an interesting experiment in self-sufficiency and one I practice every season.
One of the easiest vegetables to start this challenge with is garlic. It’s very possible to grow a large amount of garlic in a small space. And if you choose the right varieties for storage you can keep it in a cool place in your house for many months.
I dry my garlic in my garage to prep it for long term storage and then I store it in my basement in crates for the winter months. It’s so fun to use your own garlic in the kitchen all winter long!
I’ve now perfected my process so most years I don’t have to purchase any garlic from the farmers market or grocery store.
Even if you’re not aiming for garlic self-sufficiency you can grow enough to supply yourself with homegrown garlic for many months of the winter.
(See how I harvest and store my garlic here.)
#7: You get a bonus food crop.
Not only do you get the garlic bulb as a food crop when you grow garlic, but some types also produce a crazy looking garlic scape in late spring from which you can make pesto.
The garlic scape is the flower stem that grows from the stalk of hardneck varieties. You’ll notice them start to emerge from the tops of the plants in early to mid-June depending on where you live.
Most farmers recommend cutting them off to encourage the garlic plant to direct its energy towards producing a bigger bulb.
The bonus of harvesting the scapes is that they’re edible! They have a sharp garlic-y taste and aren’t super tasty fresh.
But, they can be sauteed in oil and salt and added to any dish in which you’d use garlic, roasted on the grill, or (my favorite!), made into a pesto.
I use most of my garlic scapes in batches of pesto I freeze in jars for winter eating. We love using this bright green paste on pizza, pasta, and egg dishes. Find the recipe and more tips in this blog post.
Garlic putting on a lot of growth in April in zone 5.
#8: It comes up early in spring.
The spring vegetable gardening seasoning can be a bit torturous in my opinion. The weather starts to warm up and it feels like you should be harvesting from your garden already, but the plants and seeds you’ve sown are taking forever to grow.
That’s where your garlic plants come in! You’ll notice them popping their perky leaves through the mulch as the sun starts warming the soil in spring.
They usually start growing in earnest and provide you with the feeling that things are really beginning to happen in your garden!
I love the promise they hold of robust summer garden harvests. What can I say? Gardening is a mind game sometimes!
And the visual interest they add to the early spring garden is a major bonus of this plant.
#9: It’s the perfect complement to a fall garden.
There are many benefits to growing a fall garden – fewer pests and disease, less weed pressure, hard to grow crops like cilantro thrive in cooler temps, and large, colorful harvests to enliven holiday meals.
But, one of the most common complaints I hear from gardeners is that in mid- to late summer, when it’s time to plant fall crops, they don’t have any room left in their gardens.
This is a big benefit to growing your own garlic! In many zones, garlic harvest happens in early to mid-July.
That means space will open up in your garden just in time for fall plantings.
Every July, after I harvest my 220 garlic plants, I immediately prep some of those garden beds for fall plantings of beets and carrots. I also reserve some space for later summer sowing of spinach, radishes, salad greens, cilantro, and salad turnips.
If you’ve struggled to find space for fall plantings in your garden, choose to grow garlic next season and you’ll have the perfect area to seed new plantings in July.
Read more about 8 Easy Vegetables to Grow for Big Fall Harvests.
#10: It’s fun!
Is there anything not fun about the previous nine points on this list?
Garlic is easy to grow, requires little work to maintain, stores for many months of the winter, provides you with an excuse to make lots of pesto, and adds much-needed greenery to the early season garden.
All of these add up to make garlic one of the top choices for easy (and most “worth it”) vegetables to grow in the home garden.
If you’ve never grown your own garlic, it’s time to add it to your list and give it a try this season.
You’ll be amazed at how little work it requires and extremely excited when you’re ready to harvest your first crop in mid-summer!
If you’re pumped to grow garlic now, learn more about the process with the below resources.
Additional Resources for Growing Your Own Garlic
If you’re wondering how to decide between all of the different garlic types, I help you figure out which variety is best for your garden in this article: What Kind of Garlic Should You Plant?
You can check out more of my favorite varieties on Etsy here and in my Amazon storefront.
After you’ve ordered your garlic seed and prepped your garden, it’s time to plant! Here’s how to Plant Your Garlic for a Spectacular Harvest
If you’ve planted hardneck varieties you can start harvesting the scapes in late spring the following year and make loads of garlic scape pesto. Here’s my recipe: Make This Bright & Fresh Garlic Scape Pesto Recipe.
And the following summer, here’s how to know when it’s time to harvest and how to cure it for winter storage: How to Harvest & Cure Your Garlic
