When to Plant Garlic

Probably one of the trickier things is this question of when to plant garlic in the fall. Fall can mean different things to each of us, depending on our growing zone and microclimates. The biggest mistake I see from gardeners is planting garlic too early, so this post is intended to remedy that and help everyone time it so that it’s in the ground at the right time to only set some roots before deep winter hits.

Garlic is a bulb that’s planted from clones and not reproductively from seed, like say a tomato or zinnia. This is largely how garlic is commercially propagated too, the same plant being grown year after year and sold to us as seed garlic. It’s also a bit unusual in the world of growing food in that it needs a cold vernalization period of at least a few months in order for the bulbs to form the following growing season. This is why we plant garlic in the “fall”.

While I read time and again that you can plant garlic after your first light freeze, I recommend waiting several weeks after that first frost before planting — and even longer if your frost happens unseasonably early or you get light frosts yet the ground doesn’t freeze until late December or January (or not at all).

So if you’re in a much warmer zone than me, say zone 6b through 8, I don’t think I’d be planting my garlic until around Thanksgiving or later. How did I extrapolate this timeline? I think of each zone warmer than me as 2 extra weeks of growing in both spring and fall. This is a huge generalization, and if you’re in zone 5 but at elevation, you may need to plant your garlic the same time I do. Elevation and high desert gardening are very different than lower elevation gardens. In general, for zone 5 gardeners, I’d say you comfortably have until mid-November to plant your garlic; zone 6 until end of November; zone 7 until mid-December, and so on. I think zone 7 or warmer can comfortably plant their garlic in December sometime with some latitude there, like I have from mid-October through early November.

The question on your mind may be, but Meg, when do you plant your garlic? I don’t go strictly by the calendar alone. I tend to wait until after we’ve had our first string of cold air before planting. In part, this happens because of all the time-sensitive harvesting that needs to happen right around those hard freezes, like digging up potatoes and such. So even if I wanted to plant my garlic in mid-October, I just don’t think it would make it to the top of my to do list.

For me, that’s this week, since our first really hard freezes (lows of 22) happened exactly two weeks ago. Here in zone 4 (most often 4a), that reliably works out to be Halloween or the first few days in November. If I wanted to, yes, I sure could have planted it two weeks ago, but I have grown garlic here for over a decade and I have never gotten my garlic in the ground much before the hand-cramping, bone-chilling temperatures arrive. I sort of hate the planting process because of it, but I’m always, always grateful come April when their tips emerge, and again in June, when we enjoy garlic scape pesto, and finally in July sometime when we start enjoying fresh garlic.

I could also wait another week to get my garlic in, but again, that would be sort of like garden penance, and I don’t feel I need to subject my joints to that unrewarding work this year, so I’m choosing a mid-60s November 1st planting instead. I just know I need to get it planted before our long-term temperatures read highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s or colder, as those temperatures are the start of the frost building in our soil.

Signs of Garlic Planted too Soon

If planted too early, garlic will sprout due to warm growing conditions. While it’s not ideal, those sprouts can endure frost damage and should go on in spring to fully recover. However, why put your garlic cloves through that if you can time the planting to not sprout until spring after the cold and wet period it needs to thrive?
When we time the garlic planting correctly in fall, we give the plants enough time to wake up, but not so much time that they actually start to visibly grow. We’re just trusting that the roots have begun to establish again, taking up moisture to ensure they overwinter well.

I’m timing my garlic this week ahead of what looks like some rain, although honestly probably not enough to penetrate down the 6” depth or so where I’ll be planting my garlic. I may water them in a bit this week, or I may soak the garlic before planting, something I’ve never done but our extreme drought has me concerned, and for good reason. And it seems like a great year to give the cloves the best possible start to what may be a very dry winter. We are probably 10” behind in rainfall for the season, and there’s really no way we can catch up before the ground freezes so this drought will persist into 2023.

How to Plant Garlic

Below is a You Tube video from 2020 where I planted some gifted Keene Garlic and shared all the steps I take when planting garlic. Here are the highlights:

• Space garlic 6”x 6” on center. I achieve this by offsetting my rows so the diagonals between rows are 6”
• Plant it at a total of 6” deep (I don’t ever measure but it’s definitely deeper than 4”) including the several inches of top dressed compost
• Mix a healthy 2-4 Tablespoons of slow release organic fertilizer in the planting hole
• I recommend compost as mulch and including it as part of your depth calculation, so for me that’s usually 6” deep total. It acts as a mulch and it will nourish the hungry bulbs in spring.