The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

How to grow the best garlic

Seed garlicGarlic is one of our best crops.  We invested $45 in locally-adapted garlic in 2008, and since then we've grown all of the garlic we eat and plant.  I estimate we've already produced about 60 pounds of garlic in the first three years, and we'll probably dig up another 20 pounds next summer.  Not a bad return on our investment, especially since we can keep planting the offspring of our garlic as long as we live.

The biggest factors involved in getting a stellar garlic harvest are:

Biggest garlic clovesMy list makes it sound complex, but I'd actually say that garlic is one of the easiest plants we grow.  If you don't live too far south, I highly recommend adding this delicious (and beautiful) crop to your garden.  Now's the time to plant!


Our chicken waterer makes chicken care as easy and fun as growing your own garlic.


Anna Hess's books
Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.


We were so happy with the garlic this year, I knew it would be a permanent addition. I'm planning to plant twice as much this year, at least!
Comment by Bethany James Thu Sep 22 09:18:06 2011
I totally agree (except for the growing more part --- we actually cut back a bit on our planting from the mountains of garlic we grew previously.)
Comment by anna Thu Sep 22 15:41:42 2011
We've been slowly increasing the amount of garlic we grow each year as well. Even if you can't eat it all, it makes a unique and much-appreciated gift or barter item!
Comment by Darren (Green Change) Thu Sep 22 21:41:28 2011
If the garlic didn't use up space I needed for the summer garden, I'd grow a lot more of it. You're totally right that it makes awesome gifts, especially the huge, beautiful hardneck cloves. People can't seem to get enough of them.
Comment by anna Fri Sep 23 09:32:51 2011





profile counter myspace



Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.

Required disclosures:

As an Amazon Associate, I earn a few pennies every time you buy something using one of my affiliate links. Don't worry, though --- I only recommend products I thoroughly stand behind!

Also, this site has Google ads on it. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to a website. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to various sites. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting this site.