Grow the best garlic

A culinary staple with health-giving and flavour-enhancing benefits, garlic is easy to grow if you plant the right varieties at the optimum time, says Camilla Phelps

- Camilla Phelps

AS the kitchen garden and the allotment wind down for winter, our thoughts might be focused on preparing beds and planting the last of the flowering spring bulbs. But garlic, like its ornamental cousins, benefits from autumn sowing, too.

Although we might think of garlic as a Mediterranean flavour, it grows really well in the UK. The distinctive flavour is unbeatable for a whole range of recipes, and its immune boosting and antiviral health benefits have long been prized.

Long growing season

Being part of the same family as onions, shallots, leeks and chives, garlic requires the same growing conditions. For best results, it needs a long growing season and a good dose of winter cold at the start, so it’s an ideal crop to plant now. Sowing seed garlic in autumn allows the plants to establish a good root system over the next few months, with bulbs ready to harvest next summer.

Garlic is a great crop for large and small spaces alike. It works well grown in rows between winter salads and kales, and when these are over, spring salads can be sown. It can also be grown in large containers, as long as these are not allowed to dry out.

There are two types of garlic to grow: softneck (Allium sativum) and hardneck (Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon). As suggested by the names, hardneck varieties produce a tall, stiff flower stalk, while softnecks don’t and they are also less tolerant of long periods of cold.

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