Permaculture Plant Series - 2 : Garlic

The second part of the permaculture plant series. I’m going to talk about growing my own Garlic today.

Garlic is such a useful plant. I always have some in my fridge. The nice flavor of it is appetizing for many meals. It has many merits other than just food. It is fair to say that garlic is a natural medicine based on its medical actions. Garlic is not only disinfectant but also stimulates digestive organs, relieves catarrh, regularizes liver and gall bladder, treat intestinal infections and bacteria, and benefits blood circulation and heart action. If you have chickens, feed them garlic. They love it. It’s a remedy food for worms, cold and diarrhea prevention. It’s been working well with my hens. Garlic tops are often discarded but they are edible too (for human and chickens). I’ve eaten as stir fry, good cold remedy in winter. I’ve also heard about people who make pesto out of it. It sounds like a good idea to me. Only negative I can think of is the smell. The smell gets softer when cooked but fresh garlic to hens will taint the eggs so you need to control the amount you give to hens, maybe up to one clove per hen.

Now, I try growing this wonderful plant in my backyard in the following way.

1. Buy garlic cloves from greengrocer. I bought one from my local supermarket, one from organic greengrocer. What to watch out is the roots of garlic. You want garlic with roots attached. I’ve heard that root removed ones have been treated with chemicals and won’t grow. Local grown garlic does better to adapt in your garden and (hopefully) less chemicals used on them.

2. Break each cloves and plant in the garden.

3. Wait for the leaves to die down, approx. 30 weeks.

4. Dig up and dry in a cool airy place. Depend on how well they do in my garden, plant them again for next season.

Easy!!
Garlic is known as insect repellent too. I might try planting around roses to repel unwanted bugs.
I’m very excited about this attempt and can’t wait for the results already!

*** Update ***

It’s been three weeks since I planted garlic in the garden. Local supermarket garlic is growing well, but organic one hasn’t sprouted yet. I wonder why. I’ll wait for it a bit longer to see what’s going on.

***

As I said, it’s easy to grow them in the backyard. I’m looking forward to harvest!!