Growing Garlic

Garlic bulbs contain four to 12 cloves around a central stalk. When planted in the fall, each clove will form a new bulb that’s ready to harvest next summer.

This old dog learned a new trick! And it was so embarrassingly easy I don’t know why I didn’t try it decades ago. After more than 30 years of gardening, I finally planted garlic for the first time last fall.

The obstacle to growing garlic, as it turns out, was my perception of the gardening calendar. Like most northern-tier gardeners, I think of the vegetable-gardening season as running from roughly April to October. When the hard frosts of autumn knock down the last of the squash and pumpkin vines, I close the book on another season.