Garlic is a spice many people enjoy putting in their recipes. It adds that unique flavor to tomato sauces, salads, gravies, soups and breads. Hence it is only rational that you could be growing garlic in your own vegetable garden.

Before growing garlic in your own garden, it is always best to have an idea on how garlic is planted and maintained. Here is a quick look on how to grow garlic.

Loamy soil improved with organic material gives a suitable environment for planting garlic. If you’re familiar with growing onions, then you won’t get lost in growing garlic since their cultivation are alike. Sometimes, three pounds of 10-10-10 fertilizer is recommended for every 100 sq. feet.

You may use fertilizer or compost every year to keep the soils nutritive in balance for growing garlic. Likewise, the soil should hold enough moisture to avoid getting bulbs of strange shapes. Be advised that clay soil also produces irregular bulbs.

The time of planting garlic is also vital to the expansion of garlic. This crop grows best on long days and warm temperatures. In addition, you should also plant the cloves early to make allowance for the development of the leaves and the stems while the days are short and cool. Growing garlic during this period guarantees a good harvest at the end of the growing season.

When planting garlic, they should be placed three to five inches away from one another and a half to an in. deep. Make sure that they’re in an upright position in the row. Keep in mind a reduced yield will occur when the bulbs are divided into cloves long before they’re planted. This will cause the cloves to dry up and become unsuitable for planting.

Being aware of when to harvest this pleasant vegetable is easy. You simply need to determine if the pinnacle of the bulb is starting to dry. This reveals that the garlic is ready for cropping. In harvesting, don’t pull the garlic to avoid hurting the stem. Rather, dig them up and let them dry.

Garlic is an essential ingredient in the kitchen so it’s highly recommended to include them in your garden. In growing this flavorful crop, these are fundamental things that you need to understand. It involves soil necessities, time of planting, spatial requirements, and methodology of cropping. After getting a birds eye view on these issues, you are now ready to start planting and growing garlic in your own garden.