I love garlic…all the time…on everything. It’s REAL LOVE, so I knew that I had to grow it on the farm.

Each time I went to the grocery store this summer, I bought a few more organic garlic bulbs than I actually needed for our meals. I was fortunate to also find organic Elephant Garlic at the store (which, despite its name, is actually a member of the onion family). I tossed them all in my fridge drawer and set a reminder to begin seriously preparing for planting in October.

By the time October rolled around, I had collected hundreds of seed cloves for planting. And, after months in the refrigerator, much of the garlic had already started developing healthy root systems.

To give those roots room to grow, we tussled with our terribly heavy and compacted clay to create in-ground planting holes which we lasagna-filled with fallen leaves, soil, mushroom compost, and bone meal. We, then, watered each hole, sowed the sprouted seed garlic, and mulched with a thick layer of straw.

One week later, the garlic bed had lots of top-growth and were looking strong (even in the area that had obviously put up a good fight against a critter that had taken out some of its neighbors). Our garlic bed should be ready to harvest next summer. Yep, that’s right – eight to nine months to grow. That means that in the same amount of time it takes to grow a whole human baby, you could grow a bulb of garlic. Think about that. LOL 🙂 Try it for yourself!