Common name: garlic

Botanical name: Allium sativum

Origin: South Europe

Varieties

Few varieties are available; grow the variety available in your area.

Description

Garlic is a hardy perennial plant that looks a lot like an onion, except that the bulb is segmented into cloves. The flower head looks like a tissue paper dunce cap and is filled with small flowers and bulblets. There is an old story that when the Devil walked out of the Garden of Eden after the fall of Adam and Eve, onions sprang up from his right hoof-print and garlic from his left.

Where and when to grow

Garlic must have cool temperatures during its early growth period, but it's not affected by heat in the later stages. Plant garlic in spring in the North; in the South you can get good results with fall plantings.

How to plant

You grow garlic from cloves or bulblets, which are planted with the plump side down. Use the

plumpest cloves for cooking and plant the others. They need full sun and well-worked soil that

drains well and is high in organic matter. Do not fertilize the soil. Plant the cloves four to six weeks before the average date of last frost. Plant them an inch or two deep, four to six inches apart, in rows about a foot apart.

Fertilizing and watering

The organic content of the soil is important, but fertilizing isn't; don't fertilize because it will decrease the flavor of the garlic bulbs. Keep the garlic slightly dry, especially when the bulbs are near maturity; this also improves the flavor. Keep the area cultivated.

Pests

Occasionally onion thrips may attack garlic, but they don't constitute a real problem; hose them off the plants if they do appear. Garlic is a good crop for the organic gardener.

Disease

Mildew may occur in a warm, moist environment, but it's not common enough to be a problem. Keep the garlic fairly dry.

When and how to harvest

Harvest the bulbs when the tops start to dry-that's the sign that the bulbs are mature.

Storing and preserving

Store the mature bulbs under cool, dry conditions. Braid the tops of the plants together with twine and hang them to dry - very Gallic; in France you can still see rural vendors on bicycles with strings of garlic slung over their handlebars.

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