Growing garlic in a South African garden

Green fingers are overrated, now what you should want are dirty fingernails because let's face it... That's what we look like after hours of toiling in the garden! 

I have a tiny, bucolic front garden with copious amounts of tiny pot plants and planters with flowers, cacti, veggies and herbs planted helter skelter. And I love it. 

Now let's get to growing garlic in a South African climate:

What you need:

You will need to buy cloves made for the purpose of home growing because the garlic you buy at retailers is almost always engineered to be sterile. 

Planting: 

You can grow garlic in planters if that's all you've got, I preferred it so that I wouldn't lose any garlic when it came to harvest time! Plant your garlic about 10cm deep and 10cm apart, if you have clayey soil or you are using a planter make sure that the soil is well-drained to prevent the garlic bulb rotting. Mix river sand into clayey soil and make sure planters have holes in the base. 

Harvesting: 

Plant in Autumn and harvest 9 months later. The leaves will die off mostly but try not to pull them off for two reasons:

     1. It helps you find all your bulbs!

     2. As the leaf dies so the bulb absorbs it's nutrients until the end

Curing:

Cure the garlic for two weeks with the leaves attached in a dry place out of the sun. This helps bring out the flavor and allows it to be stored for longer. 

Pickling:

If you would prefer to pickle your harvest then peel and wash every clove and store in a jar of white wine and white vinegar so that it covers the cloves. The ratio of wine to vinegar is half and half. Store the jar closed in the fridge, it should keep up to 6 months. 

My first harvest!

We used rosemary to infuse some more flavour