Garlic needs specific conditions to grow and, often times, gardeners in warmer climates have a hard time meeting those conditions. Let's talk about some tips and tricks to making sure the conditions are right for growing garlic in your garden and one way to cheat the system!
Reference episode: Ep. 67 - When and How to Plant Your Garlic, Plus Tips for Warmer Climates
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Welcome back, my gardening friends, to another focal point.
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Friday episode Let's spend just a few minutes together reviewing
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A snippet of information. From a previous episode,
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highlighting a new topic or quickly focusing on a current
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event in the food and. Agriculture world, let's get
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down and dirty. So let's talk about growing
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garlic in those warmer clients. Why is it such a challenge first
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of all? Most garlic has simply evolved
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to be Hardy in harsher conditions, so where other
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plants find it challenging to grow or even survive, garlic has
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an advantage. The disadvantage comes in the
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warmer temperatures. Garlic develops its bulbs as a
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result of a combination of day length, temperature and the
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amount of cold exposure. So hard neck garlic.
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Begins bulbing out when the day length goes over 13 hours and
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the air temperature is above 68 to 70 Fahrenheit and soil
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temperature is over 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
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So if any of these factors are out of sync, they simply just
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don't grow very well. Softneck are more tolerant of
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the variances in these factors. So the first thing to understand
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when growing garlic in warmer climates is that if you want
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large garlic bulbs to grow, you have to delay both the start of
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the bulbing process and the end of the bulb growth.
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You want your garlic plant to be as big and as tall, with as many
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healthy leaves as possible before it starts developing the
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bulb. Then when it does start to bulb,
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you want to grow that plant for as long as possible before it
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starts to mature. So when does garlic mature?
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Once the soil temperatures hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
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That's it. It hits the wall and it stops
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growing. So if you're in a warmer
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climate, your number one goal? Is to keep that soil temperature
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as cool as possible for as long as possible.
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So we want over 60 degrees Fahrenheit, but below 90 degrees
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Fahrenheit? That's the sweet spot.
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So here's how you up the ante on your garlic when you're planting
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it in a warm climate. You're going to start by fooling
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your garlic into thinking it's going through a cold winter by
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putting it in a paper bag and storing it in your refrigerator
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for about 6 to 8 weeks before planting.
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This is going to give that clove the vernalization it needs to
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form a bulb. Now, if you are doing this last
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minute and you don't think right now that you would have 6 to 8
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weeks before your soil starts to get too cold to plant in your
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area, go ahead and try it anyway.
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Even 4 weeks maybe as enough for certain varieties to be able to
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be vernalized, especially like we talked about those soft neck
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varieties. So next.
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You're going to time your planting for when your soil
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temperatures are below 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
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So if you're in Los Angeles, CA zone 10 for example, you're
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looking at mid-december in most years before you plant your
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garlic. Then you're going to want to
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keep the soil as cool as possible for as long as
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possible. And how do you do this?
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Come on, you know the answer. It's mulch right?
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Remember mulch that reflects the heat rather than trapping it is
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your best bet for keeping root zones of plants cool.
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So use things like straw or hay or something light colored and
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non porous like wood chips. No dark colored bark mulch or
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plastic weed cloth. Here is something that's going
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to cool, not attract the heat. You can also.
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Strategically plant your garlic in a spot that gets afternoon
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shade to help with keeping it cooler in the afternoon heat,
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and then you can also plant your garlic cloves much deeper than
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the rest of us, more like 4 to 6 inches deep instead of just the
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normal 2 inches. This will allow the roots to
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develop deeper in the soil where it's cooler and then watering
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deeply, but less frequently. We'll also send those roots
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further into the cooler soil area rather than encouraging
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them to stay near the surface. And if you happen to be
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listening to this from a very tropical climate or even some
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place like Miami that I think is like zone 12 and you want to try
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growing garlic, try putting your cloves in the refrigerator for
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12 weeks before planting during your coolest time of the year.
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You may still have a decent chance at getting some to grow.
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Thanks for joining me on this focal point Friday.
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I'll be back again on Tuesday for another.
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Regular episode of the Just Grow Something podcast, so until next
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time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden
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and we'll talk again soon.