Growing Garlic
Garlic is planted in fall and harvested the following summer.
When to plant
Plant cloves in fall before the ground freezes. Label the variety and planting date where you can find them in spring; garlic occupies the bed across two calendar years, so it is easy to lose its place in a rotation plan.
Make room for the crop
Space individual cloves for the bulbs they will become. Keep the bed accessible for weeding and spring checks, and record any mulch or amendment you add. The garlic-specific Extension facts in the profile are more useful than treating cloves like vegetable seed.
Water
Follow the crop through spring growth and the approach to harvest. Check moisture below any mulch and track the change in leaf color. Use the linked harvest guidance and inspect a sample bulb rather than deciding from one yellow leaf.
Harvest
Harvest at the stage when quality is highest, not when size is largest.
Many crops become tougher, seedier, starchier, or more bitter when left too long.
Common problems
Mark patches that yellow earlier than neighboring plants. Compare bulb condition and drainage in those patches before deciding that the whole bed is ready to harvest.
Use the disease-condition checklist to decide what to inspect and which cultural conditions to improve. It does not identify a pathogen from these observations.
Field notes
Record variety, planting date, winter cover, emergence and harvest. Keep the fall planting and following summer harvest in the same record so the full garlic season remains visible.