It's Time to Plant Garlic

Do you like garlic? Are you thinking about planting it this fall? Would you like free garlic for life? Well stop thinking, read this article, and plant some garlic!

I am a Canadian, and like most Canadians, I celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October. Canadian Thanksgiving is a popular event that means many things to many people - but it’s also a good time to plant garlic - or at least to start thinking about it¹.

I grow over 200 garlic a year. I harvest them in Late July or early August, set aside 50 for planting, and the rest are all eaten by April of the following year.

My general rule of thumb is to get my garlic in the ground when the leaves are falling from the trees and frosts start to occur. That usually happens around the middle of October, but not always. The great thing about rules of thumb is that they are not rules at all, but more like guidelines. While I typically plant some garlic on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, this past weekend I only prepared one bed due to competing priorities and poor weather (and laziness and procrastination), so it will have to happen later this week. Thankfully it really doesn’t matter, because are very forgiving plants.

Why does hard-neck garlic need to be planted in fall?

An extended period of cold temperatures (below ~40°F/4°C), sustained for a few weeks, is needed to prompt the garlic clove to form a bulb the following spring. This process is called “vernalization”. Since the ground freezes in the colder parts of the world, garlic cannot easily be planted during winter, and if it is planted in spring - the cold period may not be cold enough for long enough to trigger bulb formation.