Garlic
- Mature Garlic
Growing garlic in Montana is easy and good cooks know that a hint of garlic can enhance many dishes. Homegrown garlic will taste better and keep longer than the garlic that is sold in the supermarket.
Planting: Fall is the best time to plant garlic. For best results plant garlic cloves any time from about the first frost up until November. Separate the cloves just before planting and select the larger cloves to plant and the smaller cloves for cooking. Larger cloves will produce the largest bulbs. Plant the cloves about two inches deep and four to six inches apart in rich, well drained soil. Mulch your plants with a heavy blanket of straw to protect the bulbs from heaving out of the soil over the winter and to help keep down weeds.
Fertilizer: Mix yourself a foliar spray (I use fish emulsion) and fertilize twice in the month of April (first day and last day) spraying the topsides and undersides of the leaves. Irrigate regularly to keep the plants growing but slack off a bit in early July. Garlic bulbs mature in late July and early August. The time to harvest is when about half the leaves on the plant have browned and dried. Lift the garlic with a spade rather than pulling them up by their tops. Allow the garlic to dry a bit (2-3 weeks) by laying the bulbs, tops and all, on a screen or hanging them by their tops in a dry, airy place out of direct sunlight.
- Growing Garlic
There are hundreds of varieties of garlic available to choose from, but three main types: softneck, hardneck and elephant garlic. The softneck varieties have a soft stem that makes them easy to braid. Softneck varieties generally store the best, up to nine months, and they also tend to have the strongest flavor. Softneck garlic is somewhat less winter hardy than hardneck varieties and may not be the best choice for gardners in very cold climates. Sofneck garlic is generally what you will find at the supermarket. Hardneck garlic has a stiff central stalk and the bulbs have fewer, but larger cloves than the softneck varieties. Expect to store hardneck garlic up to five to six months. Oak Gardens grows and sells seven different varieties–1 softneck and 6 hardneck. Varieties include Spanish Roja, Musik, German Porcelain, Georgia Crystal, Romanian Red, Siberian and Inchelium Red (softneck).
