If you love cooking with garlic, why not grow your own? With some simple planning, you can produce enough garlic to meet your kitchen needs for an entire year But how much should you plant per person? Let’s break it down.
Overview of Garlic Planting Rates
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Garlic is grown by planting individual cloves which each produce one bulb
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A general rule of thumb is to plant about 15 garlic cloves per person for a year’s supply.
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The exact amount can vary based on your personal use and the variety grown. Larger cloves produce bigger bulbs.
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Plant extra to allow for crop losses and to save bulbs for replanting the next season.
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Properly stored, garlic can last 8-10 months allowing for year-round use from one crop.
Calculating Your Personal Garlic Needs
Start by estimating how much garlic you use on a regular basis. Here are some questions to help determine your needs:
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How often do you cook with garlic – daily, weekly, or occasionally?
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Do you use a lot of garlic when you cook or just a little?
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How many dishes do you prepare that use garlic in a typical week?
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How many cloves does each recipe call for on average?
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How much do you use for other purposes like homemade remedies?
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How many people are you planting for? The more cooks, the more garlic needed!
Once you have an idea of your household’s garlic use, you can calculate the amount you need to plant.
Sample Garlic Planting Calculation
Let’s look at a sample scenario to illustrate the math:
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Family of 4 who cooks with garlic 3-4 times per week
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Uses 2-3 cloves per recipe on average
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Also uses garlic for some homemade remedies
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Estimated weekly use: 10-12 cloves
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Yearly need: 10 cloves x 52 weeks = 520 cloves
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Round up for extra and replanting: 600 cloves
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At 15 cloves planted per person, this family would plant 60 garlic cloves (4 people x 15 cloves each)
This provides a bit of a buffer for years with pest/disease issues or clove deterioration. The exact amount can be adjusted annually as you gauge your use.
Garlic Planting Tips
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Stagger plantings over several weeks to extend harvests. Early, mid, and late-season varieties are available.
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Replenish your “seed” supply by saving the largest, healthiest bulbs for replanting each year.
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Start small your first year and increase as you learn. Garlic stores well so extras won’t go to waste.
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Plant in the fall about 6 weeks before the first expected frost for best growth and yields.
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Space cloves 4-6 inches apart in rows 8-12 inches apart. Close spacing produces smaller bulbs.
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Mulch beds well to protect plants and suppress weeds which compete for nutrients.
With the right amount planted for your needs, you’ll be able to enjoy homegrown garlic all year long! Adjust your plantings as you dial in on your ideal garlic usage.
Step 2: Source Garlic Seed from a Reputable Seed Company
Once you’ve chosen your variety, it’s time to find a quality source of “seed garlic. ” Most seed companies carry onion, shallots, potato and yes, garlic sets too!.
Seed garlic isn’t really garlic! Planting individual cloves from a fully grown garlic bulb is the fastest way to get a harvest.
Because this is what most people want, it’s what most seed companies offer the public. And I highly recommend you go this route!.
When you buy garlic, it’s usually best to get it from a seed company. This is because they guarantee that their bulbs are healthy and free of disease.
So, if you have a friend who gardens organically and takes good care of her plants, I wouldn’t be afraid to plant garlic she gave me as long as her garlic has never had any problems or diseases!
Yes, that’s how I got my hands on the Russian Reds!
Step 3: Knowing How Much to Purchase
At this point, you’re probably wondering how much garlic you should buy for planting?
To begin, you need to count how many whole garlic bulbs (not cloves) you use each month. For simplicity’s sake, let’s just say you use a bulb per week. That means you need 52 bulbs for a year of home cooking.
But wait. A steady harvest is important, but you should also think about how much you’ll need to plant again. If you eat all of it, you’ll need to buy more bulbs the following year. And that is totally unnecessary when it’s so easy to replant some of your own cloves!.
So how much extra should you buy for replanting?
It’s actually quite easy to find this number. On average, a gardener needs to replant 20% of her garlic to maintain harvest numbers. So, figure out how many garlic bulbs you’ll need for a year’s worth of cooking (in this case, 2052 bulbs) and add 2020 bulbs to that total.
By doing the math, we can see that 52+20%=63 garlic bulbs. That’s just less than 4 lbs of garlic (15-16 bulbs averages 1 lb).
Naturally, if money is tight, you can buy less garlic and wait to use it for a year or two while you get more. And actually, it won’t take long because garlic multiplies by an average of 500% per year!.
Watch This Before You Plant Garlic
FAQ
How do I calculate how much garlic I need to grow?
How much garlic should I plant for a family of 4?
How much will 1 pound of garlic plant?
How many garlic in a 4×4 bed?