How to grow them
Split a bulb into cloves and plant each one pointed end up, 3cm deep. October and November are best. Buy bulbs sold for planting: supermarket garlic is often unsuited to our climate and may carry disease.
Onion family
Garlic
It needs a cold spell to form a bulb, so it goes in when everything else is coming out.
- Buy as
- Bulbs to split into cloves
- Space
- 15cm between plants, 30cm between rows
- Position
- Full sun
- Rotation
- Roots and onions
- Difficulty
- Easy
The year
Plant
Harvest
When to pick
Lift when half the leaves have yellowed, in June or July. Dry the bulbs in an airy place for two weeks, then plait or net them.
What goes wrong
Problems, and what to do
Rust
Orange spots on the leaves in early summer. It looks bad but the bulbs are usually fine.
White rot
Rotate, as for onions.
Small bulbs
Planted too late, or short of water in May and June.
Good neighbours: Carrots, Strawberries.
Same family
More from onion family
OnionsPush small bulbs into the soil in spring and they do the rest.
ShallotsPlant one, lift a cluster of eight. Milder than onions, and they keep longer.
LeeksThey take over the bed when the early potatoes come out, and stand all winter.
Spring onionsA pinch of seed every few weeks keeps you in salad onions all summer.