10/17/2026
Let's talk about garlic!!!
Garlic is one of those awesome crops that we get to enjoy long after the harvest season has come to an end! And right now is a great time to stock up on your garlic for the winter months ahead!!
Garlic is what we call a storage crop, just like carrots, potatoes, beets, parsnips and so many of our other fall favourites. When stored properly, it can keep for months!!
And the best part is that storing it really isn’t complicated! Our garlic has already been cured (dried after harvesting), so all you need to do is keep it somewhere dry, out of direct sunlight, like a cupboard or pantry. No need to take up any precious fridge space!!
We have two varieties of garlic available for the rest of this year — Saltsprings and Daisy! They are a Rocambole variety of garlic we are trying out for the first time this year!!! We are offering them in ½ lbs storage bags rather than 1lbs bags this year in hopes maybe you guys want to try both the Saltsprings and the Daisy!!
Whether you’re grabbing a couple of bulbs for your kitchen, stocking up for the winter, or getting them for planting - we’ve got lots of beautiful garlic in the barn!
Now, for the gardeners!!! We are bagging up our biggest and best bulbs as 1lbs bags for Seed Garlic, but you guys love it so much we keep running out and have to make up more bags! But the exciting thing about all of the garlic we have in the barn is that any of it is able to be used as Seed Garlic!!!! So if you come into the barn and there aren't any bags of seed garlic available, you can still grab any of the ½ lbs bags of storage garlic, and pop those in the ground instead!!
And here is a beautiful explanation from Keltie from last year on how to plant your seed garlic!
“Planting Garlic in Your Garden
A few folks had asked that I share the basics on planting garlic -- and I'm happy to!
When asked when we plant our garlic, my answer is always "we don't even think about it until after Thanksgiving".
Now you could plant anytime now -- we just tend to be focused on fall harvests through until the Thanksgiving weekend
The general rule of thumb in our region is to plant between first fall frost (usually right around October 1st) and mid November.
Now onto the "how" of planting garlic.
First, as with any and all growing, best to start with healthy, fertile soil. In the case of garlic, you don't want to plant in a low spot where water tends to pool and/or settle as those conditions can rot your crop.
What does fertile soil mean in the case of garlic? Well, we tend to treat our garlic like gold - providing it with rich living soil and adding a thick layer of high quality compost to the surface of the bed (2-3" deep). We do not mix our compost in with anything more than a broadfork or digging folk - we aim to not invert our soil even when applying compost. This works well for us as our soil life does a lot of moving compost for us. Also, in the case of garlic, you are then going to mulch heavily with straw (or perhaps seaw**d, chopped leaves, etc. in your garden) so the compost is protected from erosion by that mulch.
If you are buying bags of compost at a store, we would suggest composted sheep manure -- a personal favourite.
So, start from good soil and remove the w**ds and plants.
Not long before you are going to plant, break apart your bulbs into individual cloves. It is those cloves you will plant. No need to peel them and best not to break your bulbs into cloves much more than the evening before you plant as it can invite disease.
Plant your individual cloves approximately 6" apart in rows, and the rows themselves 6" apart. Push cloves, root end (rounded end vs the pointy end) down, about 2 - 3" into the soil, or place cloves in a furrow and cover with 2 - 3" of soil. Because our ground heaves in the winter freeze and thaw, it is important to plant your cloves deep enough -- don't skimp on the depth.
Once you have the cloves in, cover the entire area with 3 - 4" of mulch from straw, chopped leaves and/or collected seaw**d. This mulch will protect your garlic over the winter AND will suppress w**ds in the spring. We apply a thick layer of straw -- thick enough that we do not generally need to w**d much in our garlic crop.
I hope this is helpful. Growing garlic is a favourite of Michael's and I'd call it one of our signature crops here at Small Holdings Farm.
We have "seed garlic" for sale however know that you can in fact plant our storage garlic as well. It is not that these are different garlic but rather that as we clean our garlic for sale, we watch for bulbs of certain traits -- the traits we value and want to carry over to the next year. That becomes our seed garlic.”
Only two more weeks of Farm Shop Hours to get your garlic, this upcoming week Thursday Oct 22nd 2-7pm and Friday Oct 23rd 2-5pm, and the final day of Farm Shop Hours will be Friday Oct the 30th 2-6pm!
-Kris
