- 2 months ago
Don’t plant garlic until you know the simple fall timing, the right soil, and the one rule that makes a clove turn into a whole head. This old-fashioned gardening guide explains why garlic is planted before winter, how cold helps it split into many cloves, and why a little knowing can turn one clove into a year’s worth of harvest.
You’ll learn the difference between softneck and hardneck garlic, which kind suits warm country or cold northern gardens, and how to give hardneck garlic a cold spell before planting if your winters are too mild. The advice stays practical: choose healthy seed heads, plant the biggest cloves for the biggest bulbs, set them pointy end up, and give the bed full sun, loose soil, and good drainage.
The video also covers spacing, mulching, weeds, rot, and rust, along with a few homestead lessons from grandmother’s garden. It’s a calm, useful garlic growing tutorial for backyard gardeners, kitchen gardeners, and anyone looking for fall planting tips, organic gardening advice, and simple homestead growing methods.
Created for viewers searching for garlic planting guide, fall gardening, how to grow garlic, softneck vs hardneck garlic, and vegetable garden tips. It also fits searches for homestead gardening, beginner gardening, garden planning for fall, and practical grow-your-own-food advice.
You’ll learn the difference between softneck and hardneck garlic, which kind suits warm country or cold northern gardens, and how to give hardneck garlic a cold spell before planting if your winters are too mild. The advice stays practical: choose healthy seed heads, plant the biggest cloves for the biggest bulbs, set them pointy end up, and give the bed full sun, loose soil, and good drainage.
The video also covers spacing, mulching, weeds, rot, and rust, along with a few homestead lessons from grandmother’s garden. It’s a calm, useful garlic growing tutorial for backyard gardeners, kitchen gardeners, and anyone looking for fall planting tips, organic gardening advice, and simple homestead growing methods.
Created for viewers searching for garlic planting guide, fall gardening, how to grow garlic, softneck vs hardneck garlic, and vegetable garden tips. It also fits searches for homestead gardening, beginner gardening, garden planning for fall, and practical grow-your-own-food advice.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00There is no crop in all the garden that gives you back so much for so little as garlic.
00:06You put one clove in the ground in the fall, one single clove, and you do near nothing
00:12all winter while it sleeps.
00:14And come the next summer, you pull up a whole fat head of a dozen cloves.
00:20And it keeps in your pantry for the better part of a year.
00:23And it flavours your cooking and, so the old folk always held, keeps you well the sides.
00:30One clove becomes a dozen for the price of a little knowing.
00:35And yet folk find it confusing the first time and often get it wrong and are disappointed
00:41when it is truly one of the easiest things to grow if you understand the few things it
00:47wants.
00:48So today I am going to tell you everything you need to plant your garlic right and grow
00:54the biggest, finest heads you ever pulled.
00:57Let me show you.
01:00Here is the thing to understand first.
01:02The one truth that explains near everything about growing garlic and it is this.
01:08Garlic is a creature of the cold and the winter.
01:11It is not planted in the spring like most things.
01:14It is planted in the fall before the cold comes and it wants to feel the winter's cold.
01:21For the cold is what tells it to split that one clove into a whole head of many.
01:28Without a good spell of cold, a clove will only grow into one round bulb, not the fine divided
01:34head you want.
01:35So the whole rhythm of garlic runs backward from the rest of the garden.
01:40You plant it going into the winter, it roots down and sleeps through the cold and it wakes
01:46and swells and is ready the next summer.
01:49Hold that one idea that garlic wants the cold and is planted in the fall and the rest follows.
01:56Now let me give you the whole of it.
01:58Quick word before we go further.
02:01My name is Esther Yoder and the old household ways handed down to me, the kind I am sharing
02:06today and a great many more besides, are far more than I could ever fit into one video.
02:12I have gathered the whole of them into a book and you will find it at EliasYoder.com.
02:19If today's tips serve you, that is where the rest of what my mother and grandmother taught
02:24me lives, all in the one place.
02:27Now to the garlic.
02:29My grandmother planted her garlic every fall as regular as the turning of the year, always
02:35around the time of the first frosts.
02:37She used to say that garlic was the most faithful thing in the garden, that you put it to bed
02:43in the cold and forgot it and it minded itself all winter and rewarded you in the summer without
02:49a moment's fuss.
02:50She said it was a crop that taught patience, for it does its growing slow and out of sight,
02:56and asks only that you plant it right and leave it be.
03:00So here is her way with it, beginning with the choosing, for there are two kinds and it
03:05matters which you grow.
03:07There are two great families of garlic, and you want the right one for where you live.
03:12The first is the soft neck kind, the common sort you mostly see in the store, with a soft
03:18pliable stem you can braid, and it carries a great many cloves to a head.
03:24It suits the warmer country best.
03:26It stores the longest, near a year in a good pantry, and it is the more forgiving to grow.
03:31Its one trade is a flavour a touch milder.
03:36The second is the hard neck kind, which sends up a stiff, woody stalk in the centre, and it
03:41has fewer, but bigger cloves, a far greater range of varieties, and a richer, spicier flavour
03:48that many prize.
03:50It loves the cold country and grows finest in the north, though it keeps a little less
03:55long, six or eight months rather than a year.
03:58So the plain rule is this.
04:00In the warm country, the soft neck is your surest crop.
04:04In the cold north, grow the hard neck for its size and flavour, for it loves your winters.
04:10And I will tell you in a moment how the warm country folk can grow the hard neck too, if
04:16they long for that finer flavour, for it can be done.
04:19And here is a thing worth knowing before we go on.
04:23You plant garlic from garlic, from the very cloves of a head, not from seed.
04:28So the best thing is to get good, healthy seed heads of a variety suited to your climate,
04:34from a grower or a garden supplier, or from a neighbour who grows well where you live.
04:40You can plant the cloves of a good head from the market in a pinch, but much market garlic
04:46is grown far off in a different climate, and sometimes treated to keep it from sprouting,
04:52so it is chancier.
04:54Get good, healthy heads to start and you will have good garlic to plant from your own crop
05:00every year after, saving back your biggest heads.
05:05Now for the warm country folk who want to grow the hard neck kind, here is the trick, straight
05:12from that one truth that garlic wants the cold.
05:16The hard neck must have its spell of cold to split into a proper head, a couple of months
05:23of real chill.
05:24And if your winter does not give it, you must give it yourself before planting.
05:30So take your hard neck cloves, or the whole heads, put them in a paper bag and set them
05:36in the coldest place you have for about eight to ten weeks, a cold cellar or cold room, or
05:43for those with the electric ice box in it.
05:46But never ever the freezer mind, for the freezing bursts the very cells and kills the garlic dead.
05:54Just a good steady cold, not a freeze.
05:58Check them now and then that none go mouldy.
06:01And after their spell of cold, they are fooled into thinking they have had their winter and
06:06grow into fine divided heads, even in your warm garden.
06:12If you grow the soft neck, or you are in the cold north where winter does the chilling for
06:17you, you need none of this, you just plant.
06:22Now to the bed.
06:23For garlic is particular about two things in its ground.
06:27The first is sun.
06:29Garlic wants full sun, all it can get, so give it your sunniest spot.
06:36The one exception is the very hot country, where a little shade in the fiercest heat of
06:42the day does no harm and can help.
06:45The second, and this one matters greatly, is the soil.
06:50Garlic wants a loose, rich, well draining soil, and I will tell you plainly why I stress it,
06:58for I have seen good crops lost for want of it.
07:03Garlic sitting in heavy, wet, packed clay through a long winter is prone to rot and to a disease
07:11called rust that can spot and weaken and ruin the whole planting.
07:15So work your bed well.
07:18Dig in a generous helping of good compost, for garlic is a hungry feeder and can scarcely
07:26have too much of it.
07:27And fork the soil up loose and crumbly and deep, so the water drains away and does not sit.
07:34If your ground is heavy clay, work in compost and old manure and even a little sand to lighten and
07:43open it.
07:44And raise the bed up a little if you can, so it drains.
07:57And here is a piece of hard-won wisdom, and I give it to you as the honest truth it
08:03is.
08:03Garlic hates to be crowded, and it hates competition.
08:09It does not want to grow shoulder to shoulder with weeds, nor jammed up close against its neighbours,
08:16for crowding holds the damp against it and starves it of air and food and invites that very rust and
08:24rot.
08:25So clear your bed of every wheat and root before you plant, and keep it weeded after, and give each
08:33clove its room, which I will come to.
08:36A grower, I trust, once lost a great planting of 200 heads and more to the rust, and the cause
08:45was just this.
08:47Planting too close together, in soil too heavy and wet, so the damp sat and the disease spread through the
08:56crowded rows.
08:57Learn from that without paying its price.
09:00Loose soil, good drainage, and room to breathe, and your garlic stays healthy.
09:08Now, the timing, which is the great secret to big heads.
09:13Remember the one truth, garlic wants the cold, so you plant it going into your coldest season,
09:21so that it roots down through the fall, sleeps and takes its cold through the winter,
09:27and wakes to swell in spring.
09:30The old rule, and the plainest, is to plant around the time of your first hard frosts in the fall,
09:36a few weeks before the ground would freeze, so it has time to send down roots before the deep cold,
09:43but not so early that it sends up a lot of top growth to be nipped.
09:48In most of the country, that is the fall, later as you go south.
09:53In the very warm country, it may be as late as the turn of the year, whenever your coldest stretch
09:59comes.
10:00The principle is what to hold to.
10:03Get it in the ground just before your coldest time, so it roots and takes its winter and is ready
10:10to swell come the warm.
10:12Plant it in the fall going into the cold, not the spring.
10:16Now the planting itself, and it is simple and pleasant work.
10:21You do not plant the whole head.
10:23You break it up into its separate cloves and plant those, each clove growing into a whole new head.
10:30So take your good heads and, right before planting, gently break them apart into cloves.
10:36And here is a small care.
10:38Leave that loose, papery skin on each clove.
10:42Do not peel it, for it is a little coat that protects the clove in the ground.
10:47Break them apart gently so as not to bruise them.
10:51And here is the rule that decides your harvest.
10:54The bigger the clove you plant, the bigger the head you grow.
10:58So plant your biggest, fattest, healthiest cloves and set the little thin ones aside, for they give only little heads.
11:05Do not waste those small cloves, though, for here is a lovely use.
11:10Plant them close together in a pot or a corner and let them send up their green shoots.
11:16And snip those tender green shoots to eat like a garlic-flavored green onion, what folk call green garlic, a
11:23fine, delicate thing in the kitchen.
11:25So the big cloves for your crop, the small ones for green garlic, nothing wasted.
11:30Now you plant each clove pointy end up, and mind this, for it matters.
11:36The pointed end is where the sprout comes up, and the flat rooty end is where the roots go down.
11:42So set it pointy end up, root end down.
11:46Plant it the wrong way up, and the sprout must loop all the way around to reach the surface, and
11:51you get a poor, twisted head for it.
11:53So, pointy end up, always.
11:56Push each clove down into the loose soil about three to four inches deep, nestled down good, and cover it
12:03over.
12:04And give it room, for you remember, garlic hates crowding.
12:08Set the cloves about six inches apart, and your rows six to eight inches apart, and if you are in
12:14a place prone to that rust or damp, err on the wider side to let the air move between them
12:20and keep them dry and healthy.
12:22Room to breathe keeps garlic well.
12:25And the last step, and do not skip it, is to mulch the bed once it is planted, a good
12:31thick blanket of it, three or four inches of straw or shredded leaves or the like, spread over the whole
12:37bed.
12:38The mulch does three good turns.
12:41It keeps the soil moisture even through the dry spells.
12:44It protects the sleeping cloves, and steadies the soil through the freezes and thaws of winter, so they are not
12:51heaved up.
12:51And it keeps down the weeds that garlic so hates to compete with.
12:56A light-colored straw reflects the heat besides, which the garlic likes until it comes time to swell.
13:02So, tuck your garlic bed in under a good blanket of mulch for the winter, and then, but for a
13:08little weeding and watering, you leave it be till spring.
13:11Now think a moment about why so few folk grow their own garlic, and buy it instead, head by head,
13:18all year, much of it trucked from the far side of the world, tired and old, when one fall afternoon's
13:24planting would give a family a whole year's garlic for the price of a head or two of seed.
13:29It is worse than a plot, for no one had to arrange it.
13:33There is money in selling you garlic the year round, and none at all in teaching you that a clove
13:39costs nothing, splits into a dozen, and grows itself all winter while you do not.
13:44So the plain old knowing, that garlic is the most faithful and generous crop there is, if you plant it
13:51right in the fall, just stopped being handed down, because no one profits by your growing your own.
13:57My grandmother planted her garlic every fall, and pulled a year's worth every summer, and never bought a head in
14:05her life.
14:06And somewhere between her garden and ours, we were taught to buy by the head what a clove would give
14:13us for free.
14:14The mending of it is a fall afternoon, and a few good cloves.
14:20You choose the kind that suits your climate, soft neck for the warm, hard neck for the cold, and give
14:27the warm country hard neck its spell of cold first.
14:31You ready a loose, rich, well-drained bed in full sun, and clear it of every weed.
14:38You break your best heads into cloves, plant them pointy end up, three to four inches deep, and six inches
14:47apart, just before your coldest season.
14:50And you blanket the bed in mulch, and leave it to sleep.
14:54And come summer, you pull a whole year's garlic from that one afternoon's work, and save back your biggest heads
15:03to plant again, and never buy garlic more.
15:06That is how it comes home, one clove, one fall planting at a time, the growing of your own food
15:15back in your own hands.
15:18So here is what I would ask of you.
15:20This fall, plant just a little garlic, the way I showed you, even a short row of it, and then
15:27come back next summer, and tell me in the comments how it grew, and how big the heads came.
15:34For I do love to hear of a body pulling their first crop of their own garlic.
15:39And tell me too, while you are there, your county, and the age of your house.
15:45For the garlic wants the cold, and the seasons, and the frosts, run so different from place to place.
15:52And I learn from every one of you when the planting time comes where you live, which helps the next
15:58grower in your part of the country.
16:01And if your own mother or grandmother had a way with garlic I have not named here, tell me that
16:07most of all.
16:08For that is how this goes. We share what we were given.
16:12I read every comment, and I learn from you the way the old women learned from one another across the
16:19fence line, one garden, and one season at a time.
16:24Next time, I will show you how to tend your garlic through the spring, and bring it to those big,
16:30fine heads, the feeding and the watering,
16:33and the snapping off of the flower stalks on the hardneck garlic, those curling scapes that are a delicacy themselves,
16:40and how to know when it is ready, and how to cure and store it so it keeps you the
16:46year round.
16:47There is a right and an old way to grow, and to keep near everything a garden gives.
16:54And almost none of it comes from a store.
16:57But this fall, you start with the planting.
17:00You choose your kind for your climate.
17:02You ready a loose, rich, sunny bed.
17:05You plant your best cloves pointy end up, and give them room, just before the cold.
17:12And you tuck them in under mulch to sleep the winter.
17:16And you will understand, as my grandmother did at her own fall planting,
17:21that garlic is the most faithful and generous crop there is.
17:25That it wants the cold, and asks only to be planted right and left alone.
17:31And that one clove put to bed in the fall becomes a whole head of a dozen by summer.
17:38A year's worth of good garlic for a fall afternoon's work.
17:43The garden tended the plain old way is the one that remembers how the old folk planted garlic every fall,
17:51and pulled a year's worth every summer, with never a head bought.
17:56And that is a thing we are only just starting to remember.
18:00And that's the next day I'll see you next time for more.
18:00Bye!
18:00Bye!