How to Grow Garlic at Home

If you have ever cooked with garlic then you already know the wonderful aroma garlic emits.  Whether you are frying garlic up to mix with some onions for a steak or adding garlic to a sauce, garlic is the epitome of recipe versatility.

So it makes you wonder why garlic is not grown more at home.  Garlic is easy to grow, as you will see, all you need to do is get the space ready in your garden, set up your soil and choose a variety.

Let’s start with the space your garlic will need.  This will depend on how much garlic you want to grow, but when planning, account for 6 inches of space between each garlic clove planted.  In a four foot by four foot raised bed, that accounts for ninety-six garlic cloves planted (if my math serves me correctly).  If that amount is too much, and really, can you plant too much garlic? Just be sure to down size accordingly.

Now that you know your space, you need to set up the soil your garlic is going to grow in.  Garlic loves soil that is rich in organic matter and drains very well.  If you are planting your garlic in a raised bed that will help with the drainage.  As for the soil itself, mixing in some peat or coir with finished compost or even well seasoned manure along with some perlite or vermiculite will go a long way.  As a side note, try to keep your soil’s pH above 5.8 but less than 7.

When planting the garlic clove, the pointed end should be facing up.   If you plant the clove upside down your garlic will develop a curved shoot and that will lead to misshapen bulbs.

Garlic comes in two basic varieties, hard neck and soft neck.  They are then broken down into a larger number of types.  Your local garden center or co-op can tell you which types grow best in your area. 

While you can plant the cloves from the garlic available at your local supermarket, it is not recommended.  You will not be sure which variety of garlic you are getting or whether or not that garlic can even grow in your area.  Purchase plantable garlic cloves from your local garden center, organic if possible.

Once you have your garlic cloves planted, be sure to cover with 3 inches of mulch to help protect them from potential frost.  Straw or hay works great.  This helps protect your cloves as well as keep weeds to a minimum.   It also helps conserve moisture in the soil.

The soil for your garlic needs to be moist.  Water regularly, however, do not overwater.  You don’t want to saturate the soil.

The best rule of thumb when it comes to harvesting your garlic is, when half your leaves are brown and the other half are green, your garlic is ready to be pulled.  This may vary based on variety and your location, but it’s a good rule to get you going. 

How to Make your Own Vegetable Seed Starting Soil

If you want to ensure that the vegetables you grow are the healthiest they can be, then you must be involved in the growth of your vegetables from the start and that means growing them directly from vegetable seeds as opposed to buying established vegetable plants.

Now that is not to say that the vegetable plants you buy from your local garden nursery or home center are bad. It simply means when you start your vegetable plants at home from vegetable seeds you are in complete control of the environment in which your vegetable seeds will germinate and where they will grow.

This is important, because when you start directly from vegetable seeds, you get to choose the vegetable seed starting soil. The better the vegetable seed starting soil, the better the start will be for your vegetable plants, and in turn the healthier they can become.

Just like a tall skyscraper needs an excellent foundation, so do your vegetable plants. This foundation is your vegetable seed starting soil. The best vegetable seed starting soil you can have is one that actually contains no soil at all. Instead your vegetable seed starting soil is made up of three different ingredients.

Whether you make your own vegetable seed starting soil or buy commercially packaged vegetable seed starting soil, all should have these three main ingredients. Each of these three ingredients serves a purpose that helps your vegetable seeds germinate.

What you should be looking for in your vegetable seed starting soil is an ingredient that helps with water absorption so that you do not over water. That usually comes in the form of perlite or vermiculite. Both readily available at any garden center in its own form and will also be included in many commercial vegetable seed starting soils.

The second ingredient that should be on your radar is something that will make your vegetable seed starting soil loose and friable. Two good choices are sphagnum moss aka peat, or coir, which is the fiber extracted from the husks of coconuts. Both can be found at local home and garden centers or online.

Finally, your vegetable seed starting soil must contain some form of fertilizer otherwise the vegetable seed will not get the nutrients needed for proper germination. There are a wide variety of choices and combinations here, but the simplest vegetable seed starting fertilizer you will find is compost. Easily made at home, you can add in your own compost to your vegetable seed starting soil, which gives you a true, self made vegetable seed starting soil.

So how do you make your own vegetable seed starting soil with the items mentioned above? Making your own vegetable seed starting soil is very simple. Combine equal parts of all three ingredients, that is one part perlite or vermiculite, one part peat or coir, and one part compost, then mix them together.

Your homemade vegetable seed starting soil has everything your vegetable seeds need to germinate properly.

As mentioned earlier, you can also purchase vegetable seed starting soil from your local home or garden center. There a variety of different combinations of ingredients that are used with commercial vegetable seed starting soils, so be sure to read the packaging to know exactly what you are buying. Some are formulated for specific vegetable varieties, such as tomato or pepper mixes, make sure you read the bag before you buy.

How to read the back of your Vegetable Seeds Packet

You just recently picked up your vegetable seeds (or have received your Seeds of the Month Club seeds) that you are going to plant in your upcoming vegetable garden. You are fairly new to vegetable gardening, but wanted to give growing fresh veggies from seeds a go. You have a number of reasons as to why you would like to grow directly from vegetable seeds dancing through your head ranging from the challenge of growing from vegetable seeds up through, quite frankly, growing veggies directly from seeds is simply fun.

You turn over your vegetable seed packet to see what you have to do to your vegetable seeds to ensure you are successful at growing them, and what you see is a lot of vegetable gardening information, that you simply find confusing.

What does it mean to space out your vegetable seeds? What is vegetable seed spacing between rows? And what does it mean, Days until the vegetable seeds are mature? For many, the information on your vegetable seeds pack can be a little confusing. Hopefully, I can clarify a little of that vegetable seed information for you.

Planting Depth
Your planting depth, tells you exactly how deep or shallow your vegetable seeds should be planted. In our example packet of vegetable seeds, you see that your planting depth is a quarter to a half inch. That means your vegetable seeds should be planted no deeper than a half inch and no shallower than a quarter inch. This ensures that there is not too much soil op top of your vegetable seeds and just enough soil for your vegetable’s roots to take hold.

Seed Spacing
Once again using the example vegetable seed packet, you can see that the recommended vegetable seed spacing is two inches. When you initially plant your vegetable seeds make sure they are spaced out at the distance written on the vegetable seed packet. With smaller vegetable seeds, such as celery, it is nearly impossible to properly space out your vegetable seeds when initially planting them. In this case, plant plenty of those vegetable seeds and then when they sprout, use a pair of scissors and thin them out to the recommendation on the vegetable seeds packet.

Days to Germination
This piece of data lets you know how long it should take for your vegetable seeds to germinate. The information provided is the best case scenario (on the example vegetable seed packet that number would be five) up through the worst case scenario (on the example vegetable seed packet that number would be fourteen). The best case for your vegetable seeds would occur under optimal conditions, i.e., plenty of sun, regular watering, optimal temperatures, and ideal nutritional source for the vegetable seeds such as fertilizer or compost etc. Chances are your vegetable seeds will germinate closer to the middle of that range, although many have great success for their vegetable seeds closer to the optimal day.

Spacing after Thinning
When you initially plant your vegetable seeds as per the Seed Spacing recommendations discussed earlier, you would not leave your sprouted vegetable seeds at that distance. Your vegetable seeds simply would not grow well. What you have to do now is space your sprouted vegetable seeds out a bit further to give the vegetable plants’ roots (as well as the vegetable plant) plenty of room to grow. On the example vegetable seeds packet we see twelve to eighteen inches as the ideal range to space out your vegetable plants once they sprout, with twelve being the minimum. The more you space your vegetable plants out, the better chance they will have to grow large and in the case of tomatoes, peppers etc., they may even produce more fruit.

Days to Maturity
The days to maturity value on the back of your vegetable seeds packet is the recommended time frame as to when you can expect to harvest the vegetables you are growing. In the vegetable seed packet example provided, the days to maturity for Kale is fifty-five to seventy days. So, somewhere within that time frame your vegetables should be harvested. Conditions will also dictate this time frame as well, such as drought, heavy rains, and cold weather and so on. The days to maturity time frame on the back of your vegetable seeds packet is also a great gauge to use when your growing seasons are short. It will help you calculate exactly when to start your seeds indoors. All you need is the date of the last frost in your area (provided by the USDA frost zone map), days to germination (on your vegetable seed packet) and the days to maturity (on your vegetable seed packet) and you can calculate when you should start your vegetable seeds indoors.

Soil Depth (not shown)
You will never see this data on any vegetable seed packet, however, I wanted to bring it up, because it is very important for many who grow vegetable plants in pots or in raised bed vegetable gardens on patios. This is how deep your soil bed should be for your vegetable seeds. It is not written on the vegetable seed packets because of the room constraints of the vegetable seed packet itself, as well as assumption that they, the vegetable seeds, will be planted in a “regular” garden. Although, as you will come to find out, a regular vegetable garden is whatever you make it. As for depth, you want at least sixteen inches deep of soil as well as the recommended thinning space, to give the roots plenty of room to expand. The more room the better.

On one final note. You will see a copyright date on your vegetable seed packet. In this example you see “Copyright © 2012”. This is the copyright of the information on the vegetable seed packet itself, this date has absolutely nothing to do with the vegetable seeds inside the vegetable seed packet.