It’s so rewarding growing your own fresh organic veggies. Garlic is such a handy ingredient for cooking and it’s a good idea to grow your own. Let’s look at how to grow garlic!
There are many varieties of garlic but Giant garlic is the easiest to grow. You can start planting garlic at the end of Feb and plant at a depth of three times deeper than the clove is long and space the cloves 15cm apart.
It’s essential at this point to fertilize the garlic with a high nitrogen fertilizer. Talbot (the green bag) is a good product to use. You can add about 100 – 150g of fertilizer per running meter.
It’s important to remember that with garlic the soil temperature must not rise above 15℃. This is critical as it affects when your garlic bulbs and how big it gets. Consequently, the most essential thing to remember with garlic is that you must apply a very thick layer (5cm) of mulch.
In general, garlic needs 13 hours of daylight, an air temperature of 20℃ and a soil temp of 15℃. This will start the garlic bulbing and when the soil temperature reaches 35℃ it will stop bulbing.
In Spring it’s important to fertilize again with Talbot Vitagrow (the yellow bag) and add a second layer of mulch.
As always regular watering is critical for your veggie garden! If you have a rainwater tank remember that it can be connected to your irrigation system to take all the hassle out of watering your garden.
A fantastic resource for all things veggie gardening is Livingseeds. You can buy a wonderful variety of heirloom seeds from them and also learn more about planting from their YouTube channel. You can view that at Livingseeds.
Contact us for water filtration, irrigation, Cape Town!