It's been a while since I planted garlic. They take quite a while to mature ( 5 to 7 months)and I have always needed the spot for other things.
Usually I have ordered various types of garlic from an on-line supplier because I like to try new things and you are right, it can be kind of expensive.
Usually the best time to plant is in the fall and I put mine in October if the weather is cooperating. I have not refrigerated them and they have been fine.
I usually grow mine in a raised bed with amended native soil. I really do not do anything special and I don't fertilize them that much. Usually just once a month or so with fish emulsion.
One thing that I like about garlic is that it doesn't really have any insect pests.

Yes, and it keeps the pests from the rest of your garden as well. I'm going to plant a border of garlic around my keyhole garden just for that purpose. Someone said society garlic is best for that because it's even more stinky than the regular bulbs. But I have not been successful in finding it.

I think you can just use organic garlic from the store.

Thanks for the responses. I'm creating a new bed for the garlic which will be about 20'x3'. Online seed prices for that amount are too expensive so I bought some california grown grocery store garlic. Since I won't have the bed ready for about 2-3 weeks I'm refrigerating it and will plant at the end of Oct/beginning of Nov. If it all works out, we'll have enough to fight off a vampire invasion!

when your garlic blooms, watch for those little bulbils that form on the stems. save them to replant in the fall - before you know it, you'll have more garlic than you know what to do with.

How did your garlic experiment work this winter, Kingkongos?

Did the grocery store garlic produce ok? Did you go with the 'goliath' or giant garlic gloves?

I love experiments!

So far so good azbookworm! I won't be harvesting until late May but it looks like I will have a nice bunch of garlic. I used regular garlic from "The Garlic Company" which supplies many of the grocery stores around here. Right now, half of my bed is doing much better than the other half. The plants are much bigger and the stems are thicker. I think it's a combination of sunlight (a tree was shading half the bed quite a lot during the winter) and using smallish cloves. We'll see in a month or two how it all turns out!

As a small commercial grower, I can tell you that the best garlic to grow in the valley is soft garlic, not a hard stem garlic. This was what Catboy was refereing to. It will grow, but will not do as well in the heat. If you want to get serious about garlic, buy the product from Dutch Valley Growers. They are on the internet. Their product is a California White garlic that is ideal for this area. Garlic is best planted in October, and it will come off ( depending a lot on the heat) in late May or early June. I am not sure what you mean by regular garlic, but a lot of the crap in the local stores in coming out of China and it is very old. Do yourself a favor do not buy the stuff. Like I said California White, or Italian Purple do good here. If you want the overpriced exotic stuff because it has a fancy name, and you want to pay the premium prices, then so be it. If you are looking to get a nice garlic harvest of larger garlic, then buy the garlic coming out of California. just be careful as a lot of their stuff is being mixed with China garlic to keep the prices down and also because so much of the garlic soil in the Gilroy area is tainted with disease, that production has started to fall, and this is significant, as 80% of all garlic grown in the US is grown in California. The garlic Catboy talks about, a hard stemmed variety, is best grown in colder climate growing areas like New York and Washington where there is significant acreage of garlic being grown commercially. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Bucks, Thanks for the info.

Just wondering how you folks in AZ store Garlic for the long run? I have bought store garlic and is doesn't seem to store well in the pantry. Lower shelf. Inside temps.

Why? Makes a difference on how many to plant. Right?

Thanks!

Hey Bucks, I was very careful not to buy garlic from China. The Garlic Company is a farm based in Bakersfield, California and I'm assuming it's a softneck variety that I planted because the majority of store garlic is softneck. I just couldn't justify spending the money on "certified" seed garlic as I was planting a 4x20 bed. I got it in the ground in early October - we'll see how it all turns out.

Yes if you bought from that Guy in Bakersfield then it is a soft neck, or at least it should be. As for the storage issue again I think part of your issue may be that this is stuff from China and Lord knows how old this stuff is. I put mine in a mesh bowl of some sort and just let it breathe. I keep it out in the open for proper air circulation. Whatever you do when you harvest please do not cure it out in the direct sun, as garlic will actually sunburn. I keep mine in the shed for 10-14 days hung up in bunches of about ten and as I start to fill orders for my organic coops., I cut the stalks off and put them hanging in mesh bags. I do this with my onions also.

BUMP -

How did the experiment go Kingkongos? Good yield?

Just wondering how you folks in AZ store Garlic for the long run?

I buy the jars of minced garlic packed in olive oil.

Waiting to hear about the garlic harvest! Yeh, in the mean time mine is from the store - minced.

I'm aging garlic that I harvested in May just by keeping it in an indoor workshop. It's dark and somewhat cool but the bulbs are shrinking. I think I'll take Buck's suggestion from last April and get it out of the workshop and into some air circulation. I believe long term storage is unlikely for those of us in the lower desert.

I just re-read Buck's post of April 8th. I'm going to follow those recommendations for my next garlic planting. Check back next May/June!

Much better than I expected! I had some HUGE bulbs, some tiny bulbs and a bunch of average sized bulbs. Overall the yield could've been a little better. Half of my bed was getting less sun than the other which did play a part in the bulb size...I also planted in brand new soil with fresh compost recently turned in so the nitrogen levels were a little low and it showed. It tastes GREAT and it's being stored in the basement now. I've got a little video of the harvest so I'll upload that soon to my youtube channel.

Here is a link that might be useful: My channel