Planting Garlic In Midcoast Maine

November 16, 2009 by georgeandkristin

It is November and time to plant our garlic patch and as mentioned in our harvesting garlic post this past August we are sharing our planting techniques. Growing and planting garlic is simple. We look forward to this event each year because there is nothing like the enjoyment of the flavor and freshness of your own grown garlic.

We start with broadcasting aged manure and organic fertilizer to the area and then till it into the soil.

Tilling The Area

When the soil has been thoroughly tilled the area is graded.

Grading The Soil

Now we are ready to separate the bulbs into individual cloves. We start with our favorite variety Russian Red, this garlic is favored for its ease of peeling and wonderful garlic flavor. We retrieve the box of garlic bulbs from the cellar that we set aside from our summer harvest. The largest cloves are then culled for planting with the smaller ones set aside for cooking. Always remember the largest cloves yield the largest bulbs.

Beautiful Large Bulb Saved For Planting

Separating The Cloves

We place sticks at the end of each planting row and then tie a string between the sticks to keep our planting rows straight.

Planting

We use a round stick to make holes 1-2 inches deep 4-6 inches apart and then followed up with placing the garlic cloves in each hole.When we finish planting the first row of garlic we remove the string to the next row and identify the row’s variety we just planted, in this case Russian Red. The cloves are planted just barely under the surface.

Elephant garlic is another variety we plant. It is not as easy to peel as Russian Red but has a milder flavor that is enjoyed in salad dressings and other dishes. This clove weighs well over an ounce.

Elephant Garlic

Planting The Cloves

Rows Of Garlic

When all the cloves have been planted we rake soil over each row carefully so as not to pull out the cloves due to there proximity to the surface.

Covering The Rows

When all the rows have been covered we apply a heavy covering of straw to prevent the cloves from heaving during the winter months. We have just over a foot of straw for frost protection.