Planting Garlic: Clove to Bulb

From fall planting to summer harvest — how we’ve kept our garlic crop going since 2018.

Garlic is one of those crops that feels almost magical. You tuck it into the ground in the fall, let it sleep under a blanket of leaves all winter, and by late summer you’re pulling up big, fragrant bulbs to enjoy for months to come. We’ve been planting garlic since 2018, and it’s become one of my favorite garden traditions.

We stick with hardneck garlic, since it’s hardier for our cold South Dakota climate. Planting usually happens in early October. After the cloves are in, we cover the bed with leaves to help insulate them through the winter and feed them come spring.

One of the things I love most about garlic is how sustainable it can be once you start growing it. From each bulb you harvest, you can save cloves to plant again the next year. One clove = one new bulb. We’ve been saving and replanting our own garlic for years now. There was one close call in 2021, when we were moving from Webster to Watertown — that year’s crop had a rough go, and we nearly lost our original line of garlic. Thankfully my grandparents managed to plant a few cloves out at their farm and keep it going, and ever since we’ve been working on getting the crop back to its former glory.

When it comes to planting, we typically space our cloves about 6 to 12 inches apart. For details on depth and how to properly orient each clove, I always recommend checking a trusted gardening resource but the basics are simple enough: plant in fall, mulch, and let nature do its work.

The Surprise Star: Garlic Scapes

Mid-summer, our hardneck garlic sends up long, curly green stalks called garlic scapes. These are the flower stems of the plant, each topped with a little bud. They’re easy to spot — smooth green stems that often curl or loop dramatically above the garlic leaves.

Here’s the important part: if you let scapes keep growing, the plant diverts energy into making flowers and seeds instead of building bigger bulbs underground. By cutting off the scapes, you’re telling the plant to refocus that energy into the garlic bulb — which means bigger, healthier heads of garlic at harvest. And the bonus? Scapes are edible, and absolutely delicious. They have a mild garlic flavor that works beautifully in all sorts of recipes. We like to:

• Sauté them with other veggies

• Make a batch of garlicky scape pesto

• Toss them into stir-fries

• Slice them thin and add them raw to salads

The key is to harvest them when they’re still young and tender, before they get tough or woody.

Harvesting & Storing Garlic

By August, the garlic is usually ready to harvest. Watch the leaves and once the bottom layer of leaves starts to die back, it’s a good sign that the bulbs are mature.

When it’s time, we carefully pull or dig them, brush off most of the dirt, and hang the bulbs in bunches to cure. This drying period helps toughen up the outer skins so the garlic stores well. Once cured, we stash ours in our cool, dark basement, where it keeps for months. With the right conditions, garlic can last nearly a full year.

Why We Keep Planting

Garlic is one of those crops that rewards patience. You plant in fall, harvest in summer, and enjoy it all winter long. It’s also become a way of carrying on a little garden legacy for us — each year’s harvest ties back to that first planting in 2018.

Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just starting out, I can’t recommend garlic enough. It’s low-maintenance, rewarding, and versatile both in the garden and in the kitchen. And if you’ve ever tried fresh, homegrown garlic compared to store-bought, you already know: there’s no going back.