Growing Garlic

I love garlic. I eat it in nearly every dish I make (except cookies), and I’m sure I put too much in sometimes. My sister told me about how she likes to grow her own garlic and she found a great batch from Germany. I don’t remember the exact strain, but she gave me a couple of bulbs so I could grow some too. She lives in the Midwest and I live in the Rocky Mountain region. When I asked how to grow it she said to take one clove, pointy side up, and stick in the ground in the fall and it will come up in the spring. Scratching my head I smiled. I wasn’t sure how that would translate to my climate, but we were interrupted at that moment and I didn’t follow up.  Then, once home, I ate the garlic and never thought again to try to grow it.

Last month, I read an article on one of my favorite blogs, Lovely Greens, about how to grow garlic. She reiterated just what my sister said. Plant it in fall and it grows in spring. Again, this is coming from someone in a climate very different from my own (Isle of Mann to be exact). So, this is the second time in just a few months that I have been told about growing garlic. Maybe I should make an attempt at it.

Unfortunately, I don’t have garlic left from my sister’s batch, but I did just get some from the grocery store. I figure that if I manage to grow that then I will ask for more of the German variety (it is delicious by the way). Doing my usual “guess and by golly” method of doing things, I found a little pot  and stuck four cloves in the dirt and dumped water on it.

It’s growing!!

I am pleasantly surprised that it is actually growing. The larger sprout had already started while it was attached to the bulb so that little guy had a head start. The others are also showing signs of life. If all goes well I should have four nice bulbs of garlic late in the Spring or early Summer.

I will keep you posted on the progress of my planting experiment. Until then, I think I need to eat what’s left of the bulb these came from. Roasted sounds lovely.