When to plant garlic is one of the most important things to know in order to successfully grow garlic in Canada.

Garlic is a cool season plant that requires a natural dormant period in cold temperatures. Planting prior to winter allows the garlic to grow fine roots until the temperature freezes and then will go dormant until spring. Ideally you want garlic to develop as much root growth as possible without having the clove sprout and show green top growth. Not enough root growth or actual sprouting before freeze-up increases the likelihood of winter kill.

Plant your garlic anytime up to two weeks before a hard frost, so in Alberta that means you’d want to plant between mid-September and mid-October. The soil needs to be warm enough to allow for the fine roots to grow, but cooler than during the summer months. We usually plant somewhere between the last week of September and middle of October.

The soil you plant your garlic in should be freshly tilled with enough compost or other organic matter incorporated so that the soil will not get hard and compacted through the winter. Garlic will have a tough time emerging if the soil has gotten hard over the winter and the more it has to struggle to break through the soil, the more likely it is that that plant will not thrive and grow. Here at the farm our soil tends to get hard through the winter so we have aggressively added compost, straw, leaves, grass clippings and lots of peat moss to ensure the soil stays loose. The other thing we do in the spring is to help any struggling garlic by breaking up whatever clumps of soil are holding it back. As the years have passed our soil composition has improved to the point that very few plants struggle to emerge.

The size of the clove you plant will influence the size of the garlic bulb, so unless you prefer small garlic bulbs with small cloves remember that big cloves produce big bulbs.

When you’re ready to plant ensure the soil has enough moisture in it to allow for the fine roots to grow. Growing during the drought years here at the farm has taught us to always water the prepared row before we plant the cloves, plus we also water the row once the cloves are covered. 

Hardneck garlic, especially the Porcelain and Purple Stripe families, really benefits from the removal of the scape during the growing season. Removing the scape focuses the growth energy towards the bulb, rather than the ‘flower head’. You’ll want to cut the scapes off once they’ve formed one or two loops but before they start to uncurl and straighten out, or the capsule begins to swell into the flower head. Do your cutting on a dry day so that the cut will seal as quickly as possible and remove a route for infection to enter the plant. Leave a handful of scapes on to help you know when the plants are ready for harvest. 

Garlic bulbs will continue to fill while the soil has moisture, and will naturally enter into the ‘storage’ life cycle phase once the soil has completely dried out for just a week, so be sure to keep the garlic soil moist. Stop watering the garlic one to three weeks before you want to harvest.

Garlic is ready to harvest once the lower leaves have gone brown and wilted, but upper leaves will still be green, and the handful of scapes you left on are standing straight up and the flower head has swelled and is filled with tiny garlic seed that looks like they’re bursting out.