HOW TO GROW GARLIC IN POTS



Growing garlic in containers is an excellent way of providing your kitchen with one the freshest, and most flavoursome of herbs, especially if you are a little short of space in the garden. Not only is garlic simple to grow, it has also been used throughout history for its medicinal value too.

The best time to plant garlic in containers is mid-October as the cold weather helps to initialize growth that will result in far larger bulbs and a greater number of cloves.

When planting at this time of year you must stick to using specific cultivated varieties such as ‘White Pearl’, 'Albigensian Wight', 'Early Purple Wight', ' Iberian Wight', 'Lautrec Wight' - widely regarded as Frances finest garlic, and Purple Moldovan Wight, all of which are known to suitable for growing our northern climates. Unfortunately, if you try to some of the larger supermarket bulbs they have probably been treated to prevent sprouting and are highly likely to die off in the cold wet weather.

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You can plant as late as April although your ‘crop’ won’t be as big, although at this warmer time of year you can try planting up any spare cloves left over from a supermarket bought garlic. Start by dividing the cloves of garlic from the bulb and then setting the largest and healthiest looking cloves aside for planting.
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Fill a deep container - with a circumference of at least 6 inches - with John Innes ‘Seed and potting compost’. The depth is important here as although garlic is now a highly cultivated plant – its wild ancestors would have originate from the mountainous regions of Asia. In this environment their fine roots were programmed to search for water far deeper than other similar plants, a natural result evolved to ensure their survival in these harsh conditions. Plant one clove per pot in an upright position, no more than 1 ½ inch below the soil surface - the bottom of the clove is identified by its flattened, slightly concave end.

Water the pots well and place them outside in a sunny position, and if you are planting up before winter, try and keep the pots out of the way of cold winds. From early-June onwards, begin feeding with a general purpose plant food every two weeks.

Your garlic should be ready for harvesting any time between August to September depending on both the weather and individual varieties. The problem with harvesting garlic is knowing when they are ripe in order to lift them.

Harvest them too early and the bulbs will be too small, but harvest too late and the bulbs will begin to loose their quality, and so a more accurate method is needed to determine whether or not the garlic is ready to harvested.

If the weather is wet in early August, pull up a single bulb and see how many sheaths (the thin papery layers that surround the bulb) you can peel off the bulb, if the answer is three then the bulb is ready to be lifted. If you can remove four or more layers then it is best to wait another couple of weeks or at least until most of the leaves have turned brown.

When harvesting garlic bulbs, gently ease them out of the ground using a trowel to loosen the surrounding soil, taking care not to bruise them as they will then not keep for long. Once lifted, most of the bulbs can be washed and dried, and then placed into a warm dry part of the garden dry out, however if rain is forecast then they will need to be brought indoors. Once dried off, these bulbs should now keep in good condition for between 3-4 months.

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9 comments:

Vickie's Michigan Garden (my backyard) said...

I have been thinking about growing garlic but I thought where is their room? This is a very helpful post-I'll try and find some garlic to plant this week in a pot. Thanks for the help
vickie

5 November 2009 19:56
janie said...

Do you break up the bulb when planting garlic?

26 March 2010 09:02
garden pots said...

This is really interesting, I have never seen garlic planted in pot before- I will definitely have to give this a try.

1 March 2011 01:34
jess s said...

How deep is a "deep container" ?

22 March 2011 11:13
ladywisdom said...

Wonderful blog and you have been the first I've read to state the need for planting garlic in deep containers, er...how deep please?

9 June 2011 17:57
Simon Eade said...

Hello to Janie and yes, you would break up the bulb. Regarding the depth of the container,use something like a 'long tom' pot where the depth is about 1.5 - 2 times the diameter of the top of the pot - you should be able to find these amongst the terracotta pot ranges in you local plant centre. I hope that this helps. Simon

12 June 2011 14:09
Tony G said...

My 'Albigensian Wight', growing in a container in the North of England, are beginning to produce what look like new bulbs as fattenings of the stalk, just above ground level. Presumably these aren't my new garlic crop? What should I do about them? Tony G

23 June 2011 07:45
Polish Mama on the Prairie said...

Thank you. I was wondering how large a pot garlic needs.

30 May 2012 15:45
EuroAmerican Home said...

That's great info, exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!

15 March 2013 13:02

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