Garlic, a must have for any survival garden

I truly love garlic. There is no such thing as too much garlic in food, plus it has a lot of medicinal qualities that are a must have during the zombie invasion. The only drawbacks to garlic are they are annuals, not perennials and they don’t self-seed so you can’t make seed-bombs with them in it.

However, it is extremely easy to grow, being almost fool proof. A single 3-foot x 3-foot garden bed can grow enough garlic to handle the medicinal and cooking needs of most any family for an entire year and most people would still have some left over for trading too.

Source: Pixabay

Buying Garlic for Planting

You may be tempted to buy a few garlic from your local grocery store, but it is not a good idea. There is a good chance the bulbs have been eradiated to kill any bacteria that might be one them, and there is a good chance the variety is not a variety that will grow well in your area.

Find a good seed and bulb supplier that knows what works best for your area. If you live in a somewhat rural area, your local Walmart may have them. Ours carried them for years until most of the farmers had moved to greener pastures.

After your first year, you can easily put back enough garlic to plant next year. I’ll tell you how to do it later in this article.

Image source: Denise Freeman

Preparing your bed

Garlic can be grown in any type of garden bed. You can even grow it in containers. I prefer making a smaller raised bed specifically for the garlic and throwing a few extras in the ground around veggies that often get attacked by worms or grubs. (tomato worms hate garlic!) Garlic will keep most of those and many other pests away.

Where ever you choose to grow, you want a good 6 inches of loose soil for them to grow in. Growing them on top of our Georgia Red Clay doesn’t work too well because it tends to be so hard, it prevents the bulbs from growing nice and big. This is another reason I like a raised bed for them. No one walks on the ground so once you get the bed started, you don’t have a lot of re-digging in hard dirt year after year.

A 3 foot by 3 foot raised bed can hold 81 plants with proper spacing, of 4 inches between each row and column. Each plant started from a single clove, will make a bulb with between 5 and 10 cloves. So 10 or 11 bulbs saved back from the 81 each year, will replant the entire bed.

When to plant

Here in the south, we can plant as late as February or March. Further north you want to plant at least 6 to 8 weeks before the first hard frost. You want them to establish a root system before the ground freezes, but not have time for them to sprout before the frost.

Add some well rotted manure or compost mixed well into your soil to give them the best nutrition.

Plant them with the pointy end sticking up and the flat end that looks sort of like it has dried roots on it (they are dried roots) towards the bottom of the hole. Gently firm the dirt around them. Don’t pack it in tight. You want it to have plenty of loose ground to grow as big as possible in.

If you live in northern climates, plant 6 ot 8 weeks before first frost. It is best to add a layer of mulch over your bulbs to prevent the ground from freezing. Repeated freezing and unfreezing can cause the bulbs to be pushed out of the ground before spring gets here.

In the Spring

Keep a layer of mulch on your plants to help keep moisture in and prevent the mean old, not edible weeds from taking over.

When a stem starts to rise up above the plant, it is getting ready to flower. Cut the stems off before they flower. This lets all the energy that would have gone into making the flower, go back into the bulbs to make them as big as possible.

source: pixabay

When to harvest & How to Store them

When the tops start to yellow and fall over, it is time to harvest your garlic. Harvest them before the tops are completely dry for the biggest and freshest bulbs. By the time the tops are completely dry, the bulbs are already starting to dry also.
If you harvest too soon, the bulb size will be smaller. You will know it is too late if the paper like wrapper around the bulbs is already deteriorating. Try to catch them at just the right time for the biggest bulbs possible.

If you kept your soil nice and light, you might be able to pull up the bulbs without digging. But chances are good, you will need to gently dig down to below the bulb and sort of pry it upward. Then you can grab the tops and pull them out easily.

Gently brush any loose soil off them, but you don’t have to wash them. Spread them out in a place they can get plenty of air and they are protected from the sun and rain (if left outdoors). When the wrapper is much like paper and the roots are dry (about 2 weeks), they are ready for storage.

At this point, you can remove a layer or two of the paper like wrapper if it is dirty. Cut off the roots and tops if you plan on storing individually or you can braid the tops together if you plan on hanging them in a rope.

Do not store in a damp basement. You want a dry and cool (about 40 degrees F.) place to store them. They can be stored for several months this way.

Save some to plant next year

Each bulb will have 5 to 10 cloves on it. Save enough of the bigger bulbs to plant next year. If you replant the 3 x 3-foot bed, you will need 81 cloves to plant.

Using your garlic

1. Garlic gets stronger as it gets drier. So, it is always a good idea to wait a month or two before using your harvest. It is a good idea to make some garlic oil. I have a How to article for it.
2. You can allow several bulbs to dry completely, then peel and grind them to make your own garlic powder. Then put about half garlic powder and half salt into a container and shake well. Cap tightly and allow it to set a couple of months to have your own garlic salt. The salt will complete the drying of the garlic while taking on the flavor of the garlic.
3. Fresh garlic can be chopped or mashed and mixed with mayonnaise to make a sandwich spread, that does wonders for a sore throat. It may burn a little going down, but it is usually worth the small amount of pain to get rid of the sore throat in a hurry.
4. Garlic oil can be used as a substitute for menthol and eucalyptus rubs for congestion. It doesn’t work as quickly, but it is much better than not using anything.

Historically, garlic has been used to treat:

1. abnormal cholesterol levels
2. asthma
3. atherosclerosis
4. bacterial infections
5. bladder cancer
6. breast cancer
7. bronchitis
8. common cold
9. cystic fibrosis
10. chronic fatigue syndrome
11. colon cancer
12. corns
13. coughs
14. diabetes
15. diarrhea
16. ear aches
17. enlarged prostate
18. exercise-induced muscle soreness
19. exercise performance
20. fever
21. fibrocystic breast disease
22. flu
23. fungus infections
24. gout
25. hemorrhoids
26. hair loss
27. hardening of the arteries
28. hay fever
29. headache
30. heart attack
31. heart disease
32. high blood pressure
33. high cholesterol
34. joint pain
35. lead toxicity
36. lung cancer
37. menstrual disorders
38. multiple myeloma
39. osteoarthritis
40. preventing tick and mosquito bites
41. prostate cancer
42. rectal cancer
43. reduced blood flow due to narrowed arteries
44. hepatitis
45. ringworm
46. scleroderma
47. shortness of breath
48. sinus congestion
49. stomach cancer
50. stomach ulcers
51. swine flu
52. tooth sensitivity
53. traveler's diarrhea
54. warts
55. whooping cough
56. yeast infection

NOTE: This list should only be considered a list of historical uses. Many of these have not been scientifically tested to see if they work or not. Always speak with your doctor before starting to take any medicinal herbs.

WARNING

Garlic can increase bleeding and should not be taken by those with bleeding disorders. Stop taking it two weeks before surgery to prevent complications. Garlic can lower blood pressure and should not be taken by anyone with low blood pressure. There are several medications that can interact with garlic. Ask your pharmacist before you start taking garlic if you take any medications on a regular basis.

My other food foraging posts you might be interested in:

food foraging flowers you can eat
Pine Needle Tea
Borage
Cattails
Wild and Mock Strawberries
Seed Bombs
Clover
Fried Dandelion Flowers Recipe
Dandelions
Food Foraging 101 – part 1
Food Foraging 101 - part 2
Food Foraging 10 1- part 3

Sources:

growagoodlife.com
almanac.com
garlicfarm.ca}(https://www.garlicfarm.ca/growing-garlic.htm)
{webmd.com