Growing Garlic in Georgia: Tips and Tricks

We’re going to talk about tips and tricks about growing garlic in Georgia. At the moment it is about 50 degrees and a little raw around here, and we’re going to take a few minutes to decide whether we should plant garlic along with our sweet potatoes.

Back Story

Everything here has a back story. We’re onto the project of trying to expand our little garden into someplace bigger. As a result, we want to have some options on fun crops to grow on a medium scale. This is part of our practice of “human scale living”

Sources of Information

One of the ironies of the current age is that if we want to find out how to grow something, we can. As it applies to garlic, we can refer to the U of Georgia extension service, since it is near us.

But we can also use artificial intelligence to get this info, and so we can compare the advice of the two and see if either of them makes sense.

We did consult a third source of information, namely this hippie at the Athens Farmers Market. He has a little garlic empire growing out by Washington GA, we think, and says it’s the best crop ever because you harvest it before it gets too hot.

Of course the lunatic fringe will tell you that the UGA is financed by some evil garlic corporation and is sowing disinformation about garlic so we’ll wreck our crop and our marinara sauce will be bland. And, they’ll also tell you that AI has been programmed by the evil Bill Gates so as to make us dependent on corporate garlic as well.

Since we have made a bit of a big deal about relying on data, we’re going to forge delicately ahead.

Growing Garlic in Georgia: Tips and Tricks

Operation	UGA Extension Service	Artificial Intelligence
Planting Time	Late September through November	Plant in September through November
Soil Type	“friable” soils that are well drained and have some organic matter	Garlic prefers well-draining soil that is rich in organic matter.
Watering	Garlic requires an even, consistent supply of water. However, too much will cause “wet feet” and may cause bulb rots to occur.	it’s important to keep it well-watered. Garlic needs regular watering, but it’s also important not to overwater it, as this can lead to rot.
Planting	Propagated by planting cloves, which are the small bulblets or segments making up the garlic bulb. Separate the cloves and plant 2-3 inches deep	Separate the cloves from the bulb and plant them about 2-3 inches deep in the soil. Make sure to plant them with the pointed end facing up.
Pests	The onion thrip can be a major problem on garlic. Garlic gardeners should also scout for damage from cutworms, cabbage loopers and wireworms.	None Mentioned
Harvesting	Depending on the area of Georgia, garlic will be ready to harvest from late May to mid-July. When garlic is mature, leaf tops will begin to dry, discolor and bend towards the ground.	Finally, it’s important to harvest your garlic at the right time. Garlic is ready to harvest when the leaves start to turn yellow and fall over.
Other	Garlic cloves require a period of 6–8 weeks of cool weather after planting (below 40 °F) to undergo vernalization (subjected to sufficient cold in order to induce bulbing) by low winter temperatures.	As your garlic grows, you may notice that it starts to produce scapes, which are curly, green shoots that grow from the top of the plant.

Garlic Sustainability

Okay then, both the Robots and the Bulldogs are in general agreement about the need to plant in the fall, and also, that they need 6-8 weeks of cool weather.

There may still be a little time if we planted them today, since the average evening temperature in March in these here parts is still in the 40’s up until April.

Part of challenging the conventional wisdom is having the freedom to make a mistake and plant them anyway, thus suffering the consequences, or benefits as the case may be.

UGA tells you to plant them 6 inches apart.

So if we have a couple of 20-foot rows, which is the likely width of our garden, that’ll mean about 80 cloves to plant our crop. One of these sources suggested that hardneck garlic is the preferred variety:

Can we, or should we, get these from someplace called “Country Creek LLC?”, Well, we wouldn’t feel too bad about supporting the evil online shopping place, if we knew that some little business like us is getting a few dollars.

Maybe we’ll order them direct since we know that the evil corporation gets a piece of the action, and we’d prefer to send it to the farmers. Chesterfield MO is a suburb of St. Louis so this “farm” may be someone’s side hustle.

We might very well use a local source if we can find one.

Garlic Economics

It may be a bit of a long shot at this point, but the ad says that we can harvest more than one bulb per plant, Can our $12 investment in garlic bulbs can, conceivably, give us 80 or more good garlic plants? If they do, the cloves have a “retail value” of 59 cents each, so we’re looking at a retail value of $46.00.

Maybe there will be a favorable quality difference. Depends on where we grow them.

But could we sell the leftovers someplace? Possibly. Since we like garlic, and 80 cloves may represent a year’s supply. That’s a business decision. It wouldn’t take too many garlic sales to make our $11 back.

Shallots

Do you remember the other day when we made pate’? We do. The one we got was expensive. According to Wally, a shallot is $1.88 for three ounces, and a typical European shallot clove weighs 1.3 ounces, so the economic value is 90 cents per bulb, significantly higher.

But nobody in Georgia knows or cares what a shallot is. The robot says that shallot growing conditions are about the same.

Growing Garlic in Georgia: Tips and Tricks

So the bottom line is this: It looks as though we have an excellent chance to be able to grow garlic in Georgia, but not until fall. If we plant them now, at the end of February, it’s less than excellent.

Another “if” is whether or not our limited garden space should be focused on growing higher value crops.

If we do decide to do this, are we going to order from the evil corporation, the little guy in suburbia, or someone local?

Check back later, and we’ll tell you what happened.

If you have a local source for garlic sets, please alert us and we’ll take the bike over there. That’s right, burning a gallon of gas to get a $10 bag of garlic sets to save $0.59 per clove at the store is questionably worth it unless we decided we needed a road trip, in which case it is more about the road trip.

Taking Advice from AI

Well, in this case, we found out that it more or less gave us the same advice as the conventional source. The hippie was more tuned in to sweating, which is something they like to avoid. So that may be the most reliable source of information.

What would Doug and Stacy do?