Gardening and DIY: Growing great garlic - Part 1

Photo / Paul Thompson

Everyone that can should grow garlic. Firstly it's fun and easy, secondly it's a vegetable that many of us use almost daily and thirdly you can save yourself a whole lot of money - a kilo of good organic garlic can cost between $30 and $40. If you get things right and the elements play their part you can turn one kilo of planted garlic into a 6 to 10 kilo harvest.

Basics

Garlic grows best on full sun in rich, well-drained soil. Many folks grow garlic in raised beds as this most often guarantees the good drainage it likes and is an easier way of ensuring that the soil is well enriched. Garlic can also be grown in containers as long as they are deep enough (we touched on this a few weeks back).

Garlic is traditionally planted on the shortest day June 21st and harvested on the longest day December 21st but you can plant it from around now through to August and can harvest between mid December and early February. (I'll talk more on garlic planting in a week or so).

Prepare your soil

There is still time to check you have the right soil ready for planting garlic this winter. These are the main tasks and tips:

Dig your soil through to a good spade's depth and break up any clods of earth. Soil should be loose and easy to handle

Add well-rotted kitchen compost, rotted horse manure, sheep pellets, pea straw and/or seaweed to improve soil structure and nutrient content - garlic is a hungry grower.

You can add blood and bone meal to act as a slow-release fertilliser that will nourish garlic as it grows. Vegetarians might want to use sheep pellets instead.

If soil is heavy then raise it up into broad ridges and nourish as above. This will help with drainage.

Mulch the surface of your bed to prevent weeds from taking hold whilst you wait a few weeks for newly-added ingredients to integrate with surrounding soil

We'll return to garlic in a few weeks but in the meantime seek out the best organic/chemical-free garlic you can get your hands on. Depending on variety you normally plant about 40 cloves per square metre.

Here's a short vid on soil prep for garlic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t046aVxOdOg&feature=player_embedded

Reader's question

"My question is about white fly and how to best deal with it. Of course organically. I also am interested in bringing more insects into my garden so they sort it out themselves. Another question is about the cabbage butterfly and how to combat the caterpillars. Thank you for your time."

Lets start at the end and work backwards. Cabbage white caterpillars are normally a problem of spring and summer when the butterflies lay eggs on the underside of the leaves of brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower etc.). Winter is a good time to grow these crops as the butterflies and their caterpillars are scarce.

Try and reduce butterfly access to crops by covering them with fine netting. If you start to see small holes appearing in leaves look on the underside for small green caterpillars - they often hang out alongside the central stem. These can be squashed. If you have too many plants to do this to then try dusting them with household flour which causes caterpillars to suffocate and fall off plants.

To bring more beneficial insects into your garden plant companion flowers and refrain from using chemical sprays. Open-faced flowers like calendula, zinnia, poppy, limnanthes, marigold all draw in beneficial insects like hoverflies and bees. Mix your planting up a bit so that plants don't present any easy target for pests by all being gathered together.

Whitefly can be targeted by the larvae of ladybugs and hoverflies so make sure you attract these insects in spring. Look out for early infestations and rub or wash them off the tips of plants. If they run rampant then try the following garlic spray from POD's website.

For full-scale, seasonal edible gardening advice and inspiration see www.podgardening.co.nz or check out Pod Gardening on facebook.