How to plant young garlic

The young garlic or garlic tender, which are nothing but plant garlic in a younger state, are popular for their food intake, and they have a lot of beneficial health properties, in addition to its great taste , like garlic but softer.

If you want to learn how to grow your own garlic at home to have organic ingredients and the best quality, join us in this article on how to plant young garlic step by step .

When to plant garlic or young garlic

The best thing about young garlic is that, since what we are going to harvest are actually young shoots, it takes much less time to have the crop ready to be harvested. For this reason, while the traditional harvest of garlic takes more than 6 months, that of young garlic will be less than two months, around 45 days.

Thanks to this, the planting margin is also much higher. As what we must avoid in the cultivation of garlic are the warmer months, the harvest of young garlic can be done from the end of summer to practically the end of winter. In fact, given its rapid cultivation and harvesting process, the ideal is to plant the young garlic in a staggered manner from the beginning of autumn , so that we can enjoy our harvest of fresh garlic until spring.

How to Plant Young Garlic - When to Plant Garlic or Young Garlic

How to plant garlic step by step

Planting garlic to harvest garlic is a very similar process to growing regular garlic, although there are a few differences.

  1. The first thing will be to prepare the soil . Young garlic grows by feeding basically on the nutrients contained in the garlic bulb’s own cloves, so it will not be necessary to fertilize the soil much. In fact, preparing a small layer of compost or worm castings at the base where we are going to bury them will be enough. 
  2. Once you have the soil ready, bury the garlic or bulbs of this plant about 5 or 6 centimeters deep, more than required by the common cultivation of garlic, since here we are interested in having a longer stem, since it is what we will later consume. Keep in mind that, although it is possible to plant the garlic with their cloves separately, most experts recommend sowing the garlic heads whole , with no preparation other than lightly peeling the outer layers to facilitate the germination of the garlic cloves. which is not necessary either. Mind you, make sure to plant the garlic heads with their small roots down and the sharp part up, or they will have a lot of trouble germinating.
  3. After burying them, cover the area again with soil and water a little to moisten, without flooding.
  4. When finished, if you have fireplace ashes, you can add a thin layer to the soil to add some potassium to the soil, or some banana tea instead, since garlic is very grateful for this nutrient.

Young garlic in a pot: how to plant them

To plant the garlic in a pot , it will be enough to follow these indications:

  1. Get a container or pot that is approximately 10 cm deep . Otherwise, the process is quite similar to that of gardening.
  2. When preparing the substrate, keep in mind that garlic does not require a large amount of nitrogen, so it will not be necessary to add fertilizer to the usual mixture. Instead, the options of wood ash or banana tea will give better results, as we have discussed before, because of the potassium they contain.
  3. Bury the whole garlic heads if the pot has enough space or, if it is narrow or very long, plant them by cloves, a few inches apart.
  4. Water after sowing, and in about 45 days your garlic will be ready to be harvested. Remember that when the tips of the shoots turn yellow, it will be time to harvest.
How to plant young garlic - Young garlic in a pot: how to plant them

Young garlic: basic care

The garlic requires very little care. Here we leave you a practical guide with the basic care of garlic sprouts :

  • It is a crop that needs little water and few nutrients, in addition to being very fleeting.
  • Use soils without excess nitrogen fertilizer.
  • Water your young garlic only when the soil is dry, since they do not require constant humidity. Of course, about 20 days before harvest, it is important to stop watering them.
  • It is also advisable to keep the garlic area clean of any weeds, as it could deprive these plants of the water and nutrients they need.
How to plant young garlic

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