Home Vegetable Gardening: Growing Garlic In The Back Yard
Garlic is a great addition to any dinner table, sauces, stews or a number of other tasty dishes in the kitchen. The smell of garlic cooking in a nice sautéed dish makes a meal that much better.
Even better than that is being able to grow it your back yard. Think it's tough to do? You'll be surprised. It is easier than you think.
Here is how you can successfully add and grow garlic in your home vegetable garden.
Prepare your garden. Garlic grows best in an area that has ample drainage and access to plenty of organic matter. So you if you don't have a compost bin or access to compost, if you want great tasting garlic, you will need to get some. So make sure you mix compost in with your soil before you plant the cloves and constantly add compost as the season moves along.
Garlic likes the soil pH level to be neutral or as close to it as possible. Make sure your soil's pH level sits between 6 and 7. You can test soil pH with a home soil test kit available from any home or garden center.
Space out the cloves at least six inches apart. This ensures that the garlic has plenty of room to grow underneath the soil. Plant the cloves at least two inches deep with the pointed end up. Plant the cloves in late summer or early fall about a month or two before the ground freezes.
Garlic yields best in full sun with very little water. They can tolerate light shade but look for a spot that receives full day's worth of sunlight.
Good companions include beets and lettuce where as bad companions include beans, peas and any species of the onion family.
As you can see it is fairly easy to do, you just need to get out there and do it. Follow the steps above and plant some garlic in your backyard today.
About the Author Mike is the author of the book Vegetable Gardening for the Average Person: A guide to vegetable gardening for the rest of us, available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and where ever gardening books are sold. He can be reached at his website: AveragePersonGardening.com where you can sign up for his free newsletter and he will send you a pack of vegetable seeds to get your home vegetable garden started.
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