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Home > Blogs > Farm Life and Local Harvest > Archives > 2012 > January > 06 > Entry
My Garlic Sprouted Too Soon!
…Yes, mine too. If you followed the planting recommendations for good ole’ 5a/5b zone you would have planted your garlic cloves in a well-drained bed with high organic matter sometime in late October/ early November. Well, good work, however none of us knew we would be having Spring-like weather in the late Fall and early Winter; especially not the little garlic cloves.
Typically we aim to plant garlic after the first killing frost, this date falls around the end of October making it convenient to remember; if it’s Halloween time- it’s garlic planting time (vampire repellant)! I like it, it’s easy to remember. We plant garlic in the Fall because the bulb gets a chance to develop roots and a small shoot below soil level. This takes place before the normal ‘hard frost’ of 28 degrees. This gives the garlic a jump start and will ultimately give the garlic bigger more robust bulb. We choose the date because we USUALLY won’t see the garlic sprouting temperatures of 42-52 degrees until Spring time, but this year we got them in December. This is inconvenient for the garlic planter.
These green shoots emerging from your heavily mulched garlic bed in December may have been a cause for alarm. Don’t panic! Get back out there and cover those babies up with more mulch. If you are out of leaves, straw can usually be purchased from neighborhood hardware stores for around 5$. It’s worth it. Adding the extra mulch will protect the shoots from future frosts and the garlic will not continue to grow as long as temperatures stay below 40 degrees. If we continue to have more warm and sunny days through out the Winter, keep an eye on your sprouts and add mulch to cover them if they emerge past the second mulching.
Want to learn A WHOLE LOT about garlic??? Link here to the University of Minnesota extension Factsheet and you will find what you seek. Or if you want to keep it simpler, less scientific and more ‘garden-ey’ link here to read the Mother Earth News article on garlic planting.
Happy mulching!
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