Why Not?

So, first we talked about growing our own herb garden, but what about garlic?  Why not give it a try?

The benefits of growing your own food and herbs are just endless.  I am most excited about knowing exactly how my herbs & garlic are grown and that they didn't have scary chemicals sprayed on them... and that they weren't preserved in some horrible way.   I have read some pretty yucky stuff about how garlic is treated in order to whiten it.

  I will admit I got the idea on Pinterest.  I had no idea that you could take a clove of garlic out of the big bulb most of us buy from the store, and pop into a container with dirt and a few days later.....

Garlic Clove that I had laying around... now growing into new garlic! 

 

Now a funny little story about this little clove... I popped it into the dirt one day sort of randomly and left it in the kitchen for two days or so and one evening my husband finally notices the clay pot in the kitchen and he plucked the little clove out of the dirt and asks, "what's this?".   OH NO!  He had up-rooted my little clove and it actually had little roots sprouting out.  Poor thing.   Why he would do this?  Who knows.  I will admit, it did seem odd to have a little clove just popped into some dirt in our kitchen.  :)  But, despite his efforts to kill my little garlic plant, you can see that is growing amazingly well today. 

 

If you can get your hands on organic garlic, then that is probably the best type to grow because you know how it was grown and that it doesn't contain a bunch of scary awful stuff.  So take one of the biggest cloves that you have, and plant it with the pointy end pointing up in the dirt.  Then cover it with about an inch of dirt.  Which as you can see I didn't cover my clove completely, but I will be doing that today.   And don't mind the other little greenery in my pot, those are little seedlings that I pulled out my herb containers to thin them out. 

Ok, so apparently there are two ways to do this.  You can actually eat that green part sprouting out of the top.  Again, I had no idea.  I have yet to try it.  I suppose you trim the green sprout, probably making sure to leave at least 1/3 of the stem?  Remember, I am experimenting.  So join me and tell me what works for you.   Then, as you continue to trim the top, it will send more energy into creating a large new bulb of garlic underneath the dirt.  One clove of garlic will produce an entire new bulb of garlic.  I believe I read that it takes like 9 months to create a bulb.  When the leaves are looking dead, the bulb is ready.   If you want to plant more than one clove, then you should space them about 4 inches or more apart. 

I LOVE garlic, I am so excited to see what happens.  If you have any expert tips and tricks, please share them with us. 

Happy Growing!