June 2019 - 22

GROWER'S POSTCARD
Straightforward garlic tips to help this season
SAM HITCHCOCK
TILTON
rcvcfarm@gmail.com
Greetings dear reader,
In last month's column I shared with
you what I learned about the concepts of
access and privilege at the Madison Organic
Vegetable Conference this past January.
Now, I thought I would turn to some of
the more tangible things I learned from the
experienced growers at the conference.
Do you know that I love garlic? The
stinking rose and popcorn are my two spirit
vegetables. And so I was excited to listen
to a talk with three farmers all sharing their
experience growing that beguiler of the
human soul - garlic.
The consensus of growers is that larger
heads of garlic come from large cloves,
not from large heads. Which is to say that
small cloves from a large head will still
yield smaller heads. Select the size of your
seed stock based on your market - if you
want to sell garlic for culinary use, then
a larger number of smaller heads (1.752-inch
diameter at greatest girth) makes
most sense, and to achieve this you want a
greater number of smaller cloves. Whereas
if you want to grow seed-stock, you want
a smaller number of larger heads (2-3-inch
diameter), and accordingly you want to
plant a smaller number of bigger cloves.
Have you been soaking your garlic
before planting? Growers described preplant
drenches to improve quality; soaking
cracked garlic overnight in a solution of 1
tablespoon baking soda and 1 tablespoon
fish emulsion per gallon of water was
extolled. The baking soda is to suppress
fungus and the fish emulsion for an initial
dose of fertility. It was stated that, once
soaked, the garlic must be planted as soon
as it is removed, otherwise it can dry out.
In the event that after the garlic has been
submerged sudden bad weather prevents
planting, the garlic can stay in the soak for
up to three days. Growers agreed that the
drench makes the cloves sprout faster in the
ground. Growers also dunked their cloves
in alcohol for five minutes just before
planting as a sterilizer.
Earlier plantings help
When planting, Keene Garlic of
Wisconsin has found that planting earlier in
the fall gives greater yields (even as early
as late September); as earlier planted bulbs
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develop stronger roots. Even when such
early-planted garlic emerges sooner in the
spring and suffers freeze damage, Keene
finds that the garlic recovers and still yields
better than later-emerging plants.
Growers added the majority of their
fertility in the fall, incorporated before
planting, and were insistent that fall
application is necessary for strong yields.
Sometimes, as early in spring as possible,
supplemental nitrogen was added in
the form of pelleted chicken manure
broadcast over the mulch or supplied as
fertigation through drip irrigation lines.
Buckwheat or mustard was a
common shorter-season cover crop to
precede garlic. One grower reported
great results with teff as a grass that
germinated and grew well in extremely
dry soil conditions. For planting, Colin
Thompson, formally of Michigan State
University's North Farm in the Upper
Peninsula, had made trials with garlic
planted into bare-ground, plastic mulch,
and mulched with straw. His observation
is that garlic planted into black plastic
constantly produced larger average heads.
Spacing was similar between growers,
with rows about 12 inches apart and
cloves spaced 6-8 inches apart in the row.
Growers who mulched with straw often
waited one or two weeks after planting
to apply mulch, so that the soil could
stay warm and promote fall root growth.
For one grower, mulching to a depth of
8 inches required 3 tons of oat straw per
acre. The Keenes prefer to shred their
straw so that a tighter mat of mulch is laid
that better holds back weeds. They rent a
straw-bale shredder and mulch an acre in a
half day with a crew of friends.
Growers tended to weed once in the
season, with some minimal maintenance
later on. Keene planned on 30 hours/acre
for both hand-weeding and scape removal.
Growers suggested removing scapes as
soon as they appear, because the longer
the scape is on the plant the greater is the
reduction in bulb size. However, the hot tip
was to leave a few scapes on each variety,
because when the garlic is ready to be dug,
the scapes point straight up to the sky, just
like a garlic-gauge. Growers preferred to
break the scape off rather than pull it, as the
hole left by pulling was thought to leave an
easier entrance for maladies.
Another harbinger of harvest is when
five green leaves remain, as this should
correlate to five layers of wrappers around
the bulb. Colin Thompson described a
neat curing method that shortened the time
needed: at harvest stalks are trimmed to
1 inch and roots are pruned, then an open
wax box or black plastic crate is placed
in the middle of a macro-bin to act as a
flue. Trimmed garlic is loaded into the
macro-bin and around the " flue " until it is
two-thirds full. Packed in such a way two
macro-bins are stacked on top of each other
with the top one receiving a plywood " cap "
with a hole cut in the center the size of a
box fan.
The sides of the macro-bins are then
wrapped with plastic - so that when a
box fan is placed face-down over the
hole in the plywood topping the upper
macro-bin, air is directed through the
" flues " and straight down to the bottom
of the bottom macro-bin, creating a sort
of drying chimney that sucks moisture of
the bulbs. In dry conditions, this method
can cure bulbs in as little as one week.
Actually, yields were given as 0.3-0.6
pounds of cured garlic per foot of row.
Keene said for different types of garlic, 1
pound will multiply by different amounts -
for porcelain types each pound planted will
multiply by five at harvest, for Standard
Purple Stripe one pound multiplies by 10,
for Marbled Purple Stripe the multiple
is six, and Rocambole and Softnecks
multiply by 10.
I hope these straightforward garlic tips
will help you this season. VGN
http://www.valleyirrigation.com http://www.mvi.farm http://www.VegetableGrowersNews.com
June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of June 2019
