When to plant garlic UK

Garlic has always been a popular thing to grow in allotments and the kitchen garden. You can get some great results from the garlic cloves you plant in the garden. It can also be stored for a while as well. The garlic cloves you want to grow are the ones you buy online try and stay clear of the supermarket ones as these have been chemically grown and will not be as good as the ones online or from a garden center. Here we are going to explain when to plant garlic UK and how to grow garlic.

Allotment and Kitchen Garden Book

Are you starting an allotment or planning on growing your own fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers in a kitchen garden? If so we highly recommend the book Allotment Month By Month. This does exactly what it does on the cover to help you with what you should be doing in the allotment and kitchen garden each month. Below you can see the link for Amazon where you can purchase the book directly. This book is extremely popular with all allotment holders as you will read in the reviews:-

You can check out all the allotment and kitchen garden books we recommend here.

Purchase Garlic Bulbs

Are you looking at growing garlic in the garden and allotment? Well don’t use the bulbs from a supermarket. Order your bulbs online and you will get better success from them. Below is a link to purchase your bulbs directly from Amazon.

When to Sow, Plant and Harvest Garlic

Sowing, planting, and harvesting your garlic at the right times is important so that you can get the best crops from your cloves. Here we provide the UK timings for your garlic.

Please note these planting and harvesting times in the UK for the garlic all depends on the weather and the temperature.

How To Plant Garlic

When choosing the right spot for growing garlic you need to look for a sunny spot that is well-draining. A week before planting you can add some well-rotted organic matter or fertilizer to the soil this will help get great crops.

Garlic is best planted in the Autumn or early Winter. You can always start your garlic off in seed modules rather than planting straight in the ground. Either way will have good results.

When planting your garlic make sure you split up the bulb into cloves. Plant the cloves so that the tip is around 3cm deep in the soil. You will need to leave a space between the plants of at least 20cm. This gives them the room to grow and for you to weed easy.

How To Care For Garlic Plants

When you have planted your garlic you need to cover the plants with either netting or horticultural fleece as the birds especially pigeons will be watching for the green shoots. They will nibble the tops off and also pull the bulbs out. If you have the garlic protected from the birds this will prevent it from happening.

Keep the garlic weed free as they do not like to compete against them for water or nutrition. Don’t hoe around them as this can damage the bulbs. You are best hand weeding around the plants.

When watering your garlic only do this in the Spring and Summer in dry spells do not water if they are wet or when the bulbs have reached the right size. Over-watering them when they get big can lead to the bulb rotting then you will lose the crop.

How to Harvest Garlic

You will notice that your garlic is ready for harvesting (picking) when the leaves start to turn yellow and flop over.

To harvest the garlic bulbs you want to carefully lift the bulbs with a fork being careful not to pierce the bulb and damage the garlic.

Shake the dirt of the garlic and lay them down in a dry airy place to dry out. All the rest of the dirt should fall off.

Once the garlic bulbs have dried out they will be ready to use in your cooking.

We hope you have found these tips and advice useful on when to plant garlic Uk useful. Check out all our other hints and tips in our plant index here