I know you know what garlic looks like in the grocery store, but this is what it looks like in the garden.

 

Garlic is in the Liliaceae family;  along with onion, leek, asparagus, daffodils, Easter lilies, etc.  Big family of plants!!  

 

Just like daffodils, and other spring flowering bulbs, garlic is planted in the fall, before the ground freezes.  Around here, no later than Thanksgiving.  All you have to do is separate the bulbs into cloves, and plant them blunt end down, pointy end up.  Cover the row with mulch to protect the young bulbs through the winter.  You could even plant garlic cloves in your flower garden;  they only require 5-6 inches spacing.  

 

I've tried planting grocery store garlic before.  Sometimes the bulbs are treated with anti-sprout chemicals, which prevents them from growing full size bulbs.  So I buy organically grown bulbs.  Had OK luck, but last year we got our garlic bulbs from Sow True Seed (Asheville, NC).  And it looks like we're going to have a bumper crop. These look fabulous!!!  The plants are about 3 1/2 feet tall, and you can see the thickness of the necks.

 

Garlic is harvested late June, into early July.  That means it takes 8 months to grow garlic, but there's not much else in the garden over the winter, so it's not taking up anybody's space.  

 

I can hardly wait to see what's under these plants!!  I'll take a picture of our harvest so you can see too.  

 

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!