Yesterday’s program Cathy Isom covered growing ginger. Today’s program covers another spice. She fills you in with a few tips about growing your own garlic. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.
Garlic is fairly simple to propagate. In fact, every time a fresh clove of garlic sends out a little green sprout, a new plant has been started. For your planting purposes, its easiest to find the sprouts when garlic comes from a farmer’s market. Commercially, they are often treated so they won’t sprout.
Planting garlic, then, is nothing too remarkable. Choose the largest cloves to plant (cook with the others), and put them three inches under the surface of the soil, pointing upwards. Make sure the soil stays moist but drained. And then, just wait. It’s best to plant garlic around October and expect it to arrive in early summer, when its leaves turn yellow.
To store garlic properly, be sure you keep it in a cool climate, preferably a dark place, which will inhibit mold growth. It will last well up to 4 months. A great place is a low humidity pantry, or a cool, dark place in your pantry. You can continue the growing cycle each season to make sure you have garlic all year.
I’m Cathy Isom…