Garlic - "California Early" 1/2 lb

Garlic for planting: 1/2 lbs (about 8 Bulbs)

“California Early” is a softneck variety of garlic and a staple in our hot, humid South Carolina, Zone 7b/8a garden.

Your climate zone might differ, but here’s how we grow this variety in our area:

Garlic is one of our easiest plants to grow and care for, and it fills a garden niche over the winter when many of our beds are empty. In late September or early October, we separate garlic heads into individual cloves and choose the largest ones for planting. These go into a well-established garden row or bed, about 4-5 inches deep and 4-8 inches apart. Then, quickly after planting, we gather dry and brown leaves, spent flower heads, grass clippings, to make a loose mulch over the garlic. In about 2 weeks, grass-like spears of green will begin to emerge from the soil. Success!

Over the fall and winter, we will occasionally see small weeds in the garlic patch and pull them, and top off our mulch if it has blown away. Then there’s nothing to worry about until Spring. It’s lovely seeing the greenery over the winter; it looks a lot like a bed of daffodils or wheat. You might choose to water your garlic bed during a dry spell, but with sufficient mulch I don’t ever water mine.

In June, the green leaves begin to turn yellow, and eventually fall over. Don’t be alarmed! This means it’s time to harvest. Gently tug the bulbs out of the ground; you may need to carefully loosen the bed with a garden fork, being careful not to pierce any garlic heads.

If there is soil stuck to the bulbs, I lay them in a shady place for a day or two until the soil dries and can be gently brushed off. You don’t need a perfect white bulb for storage. It’s ok to rub off a layer or two of ‘paper’ to make them look pretty for gifts or photos, but the more layers you can leave alone the longer the garlic will keep.

Braid the long necks together, trim the roots short, and hang the braids somewhere indoors to cure. You can keep them like this purely for the aesthetic of it, but once they’re dry it’s ok to snip the heads off for more compact storage, and compost the tops/leaves.

These bulbs will keep in storage until the following Spring when it’s time to plant! The tricky part is saving enough garlic for replanting, and keeping that separated from your eating stash.

About this garlic: Better than organic - We have grown these since 2015, with no fertilizers or poisons of any kind, just a little homemade compost, our native soil, and rain. You are purchasing the most recent generation of seeds from that lineage.