Grow Garlic: A useful plant In Companion Planting

A nickel will get you on the subway, but garlic will get you a seat.

Once we discuss growing ginger, garlic is not very far behind. Today we will discuss about Garlic.

Botanical name: Allium sativum

There are basically 2 varieties of Garlic are available.

Soft-neck variety: in this type of garlic the neck of the garlic stay soft after harvest. This variety is the easiest to grow. This variety is also recommended particularly for the warmer climatic areas.

Hard-neck variety:here garlic has a stiff stem that dries to a rigid stick. And it makes braiding almost impossible.

Garlic is grown from the cloves. For growing, you need to plant the cloves into the ground with root end down and pointed end up. Break the cloves from the bulb but do not remove the papery husk which surrounds individual clove. Put the cloves two inch inside the soil with 6 to 8 inches apart. Each clove will produce a single bulb and the largest clove generally produces the largest bulb. If you planting the clove into normal soil and not in any soil-less media, it is better to soak the cloves in water containing baking powder and liquid seaweed to prevent fungal diseases.

Planting cloves from the grocery store can be a bad idea. They are generally treated with various chemicals to make their self life longer. Instead try your local nurseries or seed selling companies for the cloves.

Make sure your soil has plenty of organic matter. To increase the fertility you can always add compost to the soil. Select a place where the sun exposure is good. Garlic requires plenty of nitrogen so choose your compost ingredients accordingly.

Once you planted the cloves cover it with mulch. If you are new to mulching, and want to know more about it, check out this article. After 6 to 8 weeks, depending on the variety and the weather, you will find the shoots coming up through the mulch.  Water requirement of garlic is normally not huge. Inch deep water in every week is more than enough. Stop water once the leaves begin to yellow. This will help to make the bulbs firm.

Garlic has very few pest problems. Rather it is a pest repellant. That is why in organic pest controlling methods, using garlic is a common phenomenon.

You can harvest the garlic once three-quarter of the leaves become yellow. Dig up all the bulbs and get them out of the sun immediately. Keep them in dry and shaded place for six weeks. Once they become thoroughly dry trim the roots. Cut off the stalk 1 inch above the bulb. Now you can use your garlic.

Apart from its intense flavor and culinary uses it is very good insect repellant and thus used widely in companion planting. More about companion planting and its benefits check out this article.

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