Brings the pong back in your garden (Garlic)

Member Name: kelebhutu

Product:	Garlic
Date:	17/05/09 (108 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap, easy and lots more

Disadvantages: pongy

Last night I had some guests over for dinner and for the hundredth time someone complimented on the small home grown dried braid of garlic, thyme and red-chilli I keep hung in my kitchen as a reminder of my last years hard effort at gardening. Not surprisingly they were the only plants that were left untouched by the slugs and snails which ran riot in my vegetable patch when I was away for a few days.. hmm mustn't forget to herb/spice up the garden this year too.



A little bit on the History :
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Garlic is native to central Asia, but its use spread across the world more than 5000 years ago. It was worshipped by the Egyptians and fed to workers building the Great Pyramid at Giza, about 2600 BC. Greek athletes ate it to build their strength. Garlic came to the Western Hemisphere with some of the first European explorers, and as we can see it became popular quickly. While I am writing this my mind keeps drifting back to one of the Carry-on series ...lol..

Garlic is a member of Alliacea or the onion familly , with a term Allium sativum, and was named speared leek ' gaerleac ' by the Germans as its shoot has a close resemblance to leek too, a skinnier version perhaps.I think garlic is a modified version of the same name.


China is the world's largest producer of garlic.



Growing garlic:
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Tips on planting:
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~~Getting the soil ready~~

Garlic loves loads of organic material in the soil , so a rich mixture of loam is ideal for garlic. The soil shouldn't be too heavy as is true for most bulbs, so its best to add a bit of grit to any heavy soil before planting for easy drainage. Garlic doesn't like standing in puddles so good drained soil is an important criteria while preparing the area, waterlogging also rots the bulb over winter.
The area chosen should receive full sun for most part of the day. I often add a top coat of wood mulching once the cloves are in..its looks really nice.



~~Planting and harvesting time~~

There is a saying that garlic are best planted on the years shortest day and harvested in the longest. So roughly its best to plant just before the grown starts to freeze thereby giving the root-system ample time to develop properly before the ground freezes, say uptill November beginning . Again you can harvest whenever the summer heat kills of the green shoots, roughly from June end to early august.



~~Seeds/pods ~~

The easiest way to go about obtaining garlic seeds in the UK is to just break up a healthy large garlic bulb into its cloves making sure that the base(stem disc ) is free of any fungus(green powdery coating) , you could also dust it with a brushing of Sulphur powder to be extra sure . This is the cheapest source to seed-garlic.. Garden centers and nurseries do sell quality seed garlic with their winter/spring bulbs too. The third way would be is to use the seeds produced at the tip of the plants of the last years crop , if you grew and stored any. The fatter the cloves the better the end product you will harvest, so just stick to cloves over 1cm in thickness .



~~Planting ~~

Plant in well prepared area about 2 inches deep and leaving a gap of 6 inches from the next clove on all sides. Care should be taken that the pointed tip is towards the top while planting. Water the area just after planting and withhold any more watering unless it is very hot and the land gets parched , till the shoots start poking out of the ground.

Can be grown in containers. Plant one clove each in a 9cm large pot containing a reliable compost mix , water lightly and place it on a sunny window sill.



~~Pest and diseases ~~

Aha !! bye bye slugs and green flies. Only pulled up occasionally by curious pesky birds once they have started growing. Sometimes attacked by white onion rot, causing the stems to wilt prematurely and the symptom appears in the form of white fluff. Its best to dig up and incinerate the affected plants.


~~ Care ~~

Garlic needs very little after care , just a bit of watering in long dry spells , arduous weeding and a little initial feeding with general purspose fertilizers particulary around spring (march through may ) .The greener your plants the fatter your bulbs is your motto here.


~~Harvesting ~~

Like I have mentioned above , in the height of summer when the tops start to yellow just lift up the fully formed bulbs gently with a fork . The they should be left in a dry place(possibly in the shed ) out of moisture/sudden rain to dry up completely . The cloves can be eaten in dishes or left braided in bundles.

If the summer is a damp/wet one and the plants have strted yellowing but haven't fully browned..it would be necessary to pull out a bulb and assess if the bulbs are ready to harvest. At tis stage if the outer papery sheath on the bulb are three-layered the bulbs are ready to harvest and should be pulled out without delay... if the crop is not harvested at this time , the bulbs tend to get diseased quickly in the damp soil.

** Garlic like other bulbs tend to spring up again in the same spot the nest year(as a sentiment I have left a little patch in my garden where my mum first planted some garlic some 3 years back) , but like with most crops its best to change the place where you want to grow them every year(sort of crop rotation) otherwise those minerals that garlic use from the soil alone will get depleted otherwise.



~~Uses~~

Eaten for strength and vitality . Is a well known aphrodisiac... be sure to fore warn your partner .


Shots can be eaten as onion greens in stir-fries.


Widely used to flavour curries and other dishes .

The oil obtained by broiling crushed garlic cloves in hot oil , when rubbed on the feet and chest of people with cheasty cough ..serves as a powerful expectorant ... provided one can live with the pong, I have often used this on my little one who often suffers from cold and coughs.

There are endless uses really , but these were the only 4 I could think of.



Advantages of growing garlic:
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Even if you are a beginner you simply can't go wrong with this as garlic is a very easy plant to grow.

When planted interspersed between roses and other shrubs that are likely to be attacked by green/black flies(which further lead to fungal infection) ... they deter these pests.

They tend to grow back in the same spot every year from damaged/broken bits of those cloves that remain in the soil .

They take up very little space in the garden , the arial bit being an upright and neat single shoot with slim leaves.

You get a very smart looking patch of plants.

They are not attacked by slugs and snails.

It requires very little care or even watering.

Wet garlic, ie that has come straight out of the soil and the outer sheaths are yet to dry are not only sweeter but less pungent than the dry ones so you can enjoy these.

You could just poke cloves that start getting green shoots into the soil and have new plants from it.

As they are one of the crops that grow in winter it is a good way of using garden/allotment space when nothing else much would be growing, thus adding the much needed green to the otherwise brown and grey.


Though perishable their shelf life is about a year long..well how many other plant produce can you keep stored that long. They look so pretty braided alone or with dried chilies and herbs.

You get around 15-20 cloves by growing just one clove.

Summary: I have been growing garlic in my backyard for the past seven years and love it.