Time to Plant Garlic
Commercial Garlic Growers love Garden Mat #1 or Garden Mat #9.
Now is the perfect time of year in the North to plant garlic; any time between September and when the ground is frozen. But, the sooner the better. If you wait until next spring, your bulbs will not be as large at harvest time.
Growing garlic has never been easier when you use either Garden Mat #1 or Garden Mat #9.
We leave our garlic mats out 365 days a year. Granted, they will not last quite as long as the rest of our Garden Mats, which we pull up at the end of the season, hose off, roll up and store for the winter. But, if left out year round our mats still last about five to eight years (not bad) if you take care of them.
Garden Mat #9 just before the first big snow.
Garlic is one of the first things to pop up in the spring. All we do is finger pluck weeds a few minutes each week. We harvest the scapes when they are young. We only have to weed our garlic bed about 30 minutes to 40 minutes an entire year!!
We generally harvest our garlic bulbs toward the end of July. We cut the stems about 2″ above the mats. Then we roll the mats up and harvest the bulbs as we go. Right after we harvest, when the mats are off the soil, we till in some good compost or manure, rake the surface smooth and then pin the mats back down. Then we wait until fall, when we plant one garlic clove per hole, about 1 ½” deep, root side down. We grow 300 bulbs of garlic a year and it generally takes about 60 minutes to plant. After that, there is virtually no weeding and nothing left to do. Just let them grow.
Garden Mats make growing garlic that easy.
If you are a commercial grower, you definitely should use Garden Mats. We have commercial growers that grow 5,000 — 30,000 bulbs a year. Garden Mats are much less expensive than straw mulch, which often produces its own weeds. All of our commercial growers swear by Garden Mats.
Garlic scapes make the best pesto, or as an addition to almost any dish. But you have to cut them when they are young.
