If your garlic’s sprouting early, don’t panic. In today’s episode, I’m going to share with you all the things you can do to relieve your mind of worry and get your garlic up and growing, so you have an amazing harvest this season. Let’s go!
Now, it doesn’t come as a surprise that we’ve had a warmer winter than we usually have, and that’s caused a lot of our garlic to sprout. And that usually brings a bunch of fearful gardeners out, and they write us emails asking if their garlic is going to be okay. You may have even started your garlic too early in the fall, and winter was late to arrive, and you had garlic sprouting even in the fall. And so, that worry has been brewing for several months now. But what you’ll find is that garlic is very cold-tolerant; it can handle the cold.
Now, this garlic here is a hard neck variety. We do have a couple of soft necks, but hard neck varieties are even colder than the soft necks. So, if you’re planting the right type of variety for your region, you’re more than likely going to be fine. Now, soft neck varieties are not quite as cold-tolerant as hard neck varieties, but even then, we actually have, it’s down here, we have three rows of soft necks. They’re up and they’re growing just like the hard necks are, and I’m still not worried. And the reason why is a couple of things, and we’re going to get into some things that you can do if your garlic is sprouted too early and you are fearful. I’m also going to talk about some things to look for that are signs that your garlic may be too far along, maybe growing too fast too early; those are some things that can cause some concern.
But a few inches off the ground is very normal; it’s very, very normal and it’s somewhat expected. In fact, so um, the first thing I want to talk about is the fact that I’m not worried, and I’m not going to be doing anything different for my case. But we’re also going to go into some cases where there may be some cause for concern and what you can do if your garlic is kind of in that red territory.
Right now, we’re not even in caution territory; we’re like green for go. This is all good; this is fine; this is normal. But if your garlic is kind of creeping towards that red stop-caution mode, I got some stuff for you. So, the first reason why I’m not concerned is like I said, I chose varieties that are going to do very well in our area. So, because of that, I know that I’m going to have varieties that are very cold-tolerant; they’re going to handle the weather that Michigan is throwing at us currently. And despite the fact that they’re up and growing, they’re not too far along, and they’re cold-tolerant, so that’s one thing.
The second thing is the amount of growth that they have. Now, garlic is a bulb, and bulbs do sprout, right? That’s their energy store for the following season. And garlic will start to grow depending on how early you plant it. If the weather is warm and the soil is damp and it’s nice and fertile, you’re going to see some growth; that’s to be expected. Now, how much growth is what kind of dictates… you’re good to go, you’re fine, no worries, into kind of that caution, maybe start taking some steps to protect it territory. About 3 to 5 inches is all you really want on your garlic. If it’s taller than 5 inches, you’re starting to creep up into that caution territory, where some steps might need to be taken.
But that 3 to 5-inch territory, you’re totally fine. And that’s because that green growth, even if it dies back a little bit like we have some that have some yellow tips on them, that’s from the cold that will tend to die back, and they won’t really phase the garlic at all. If it gets much taller than that, that’s where we’re going to take some steps to really kind of protect the garlic, help conserve that energy. Because if it grows too much and then it happens to die back, that’s all energy lost that could affect a harvest later on.
The other thing that frost fabric helps to do is not just protect the top of the plants, but also helps protect the soil. It’s going to help to trap heat in the soil so that it helps radiate out through the night. And so, I’m not going to apply frost covering over my beds all the time. I’m only going to do it during the night, and then during the day, I’m just going to let the sun and whatever shine on my plants. If I happen to get snow, that’s even better. I actually like snow because snow can help to insulate the soil and protect them. It’s going to help them keep them at more of a climate-controlled 25 to 32 degrees.
Your garlic is not going to do a ton of growing in that 25 to 32-degree range. Your garlic will start to grow at about 35 to 40 degrees. And so, at that point, that’s where your garlic actually continues to grow. Anything below that 35-degree threshold, though, it’s going to be green, but it’s not going to do a ton of growing. It’s going to basically stay just like it is right now. So, if it hasn’t done a ton of growing, there’s no need to be concerned. If it is growing, it’s kind of getting into that caution territory taller than 5 inches, throw some frost cover over top just during the night. If it gets snow, pull that frost cover off; let that snow settle on the soil. It’s going to be a wonderful insulator because snow has a ton of air, and air is a great insulator. Snow is often seen as cold, right? But it’s not as cold as the air temperature might be. It’s going to trap that heat near the roots; that’s going to protect it.
And then, the final thing you can do, aside from frost covering, is you can actually reapply mulch. We’ve actually taken off the mulch off these beds; we had some pine mulch that we had on here, and we actually applied a layer of fresh compost over top where that mulch was, so that we can actually kind of get into spring. But if it gets really, really cold, we can always throw mulch back over top of this. It’s not saying you can’t.
So, here we actually have a garlic plant that got a little too tall and got some frost damage, and you can see, this is what happens, you know, the tips just die back; they turn brown, and they wither away. The new growth is nice and green and happy. So, I’m not terribly concerned, but what you want to look for, this is healthy, this is very normal, right? This got a little yellow tip to it, but for as warm as it’s been and as sporadic as the temperatures have been, this is very acceptable. This garlic is going to come out of dormancy; it’s going to grow very well, and it’s going to thrive for us. I have no doubts in that.
This garlic here definitely had some frost damage, and you know, obviously, I wish I could have prevented that, but gardening is just about dealing with the situations as they arise, because I don’t have a crystal ball. I don’t know what the weather is going to be. And so, this garlic probably sprouted in late fall, probably grew like this over winter, and so this was exposed to far more harsh weather conditions than, you know, than some of these other ones were. And as you can see, much taller, a lot more access to that cold, harsh, cutting wind, and had some dieback. And so, a lot of gardeners would fear that this is maybe going to die. Even if this dies all the way back, I’m still entrusting that there’s enough energy in that garlic clove down below the soil to push some new growth. So, even if they lose all these leaves up top, there’s generally enough energy to kind of push some more new growth and still kind of salvage your season.
All right, the final thing you can do is if your garlic is starting to grow into that caution territory and you are worried about it, what you can do is you can actually embrace the growth. Now, I know you’re probably thinking, ‘Hold on, Luke, press the brakes, pause, what’s going on? Why would you want to embrace the growth if we’re talking about, you know, still cold weather in the future?’ The reason why we’re embracing the growth is because, well, you can’t reverse growth; you can’t go backwards. It’s not like we’re in the 90s and you can just rewind the tape. You gotta just kind of embrace it. And how can you do that? Well, if it’s already very far advanced, you have some cold weather in the future, but you’re in early March like we’re in right now, what you can do is you can actually put some plastic over top of your beds. You can actually use the sun to warm the soil even more, expedite that growth, and get it growing. And what that’s going to do is it’s going to help your garlic to actually start generating that energy. Because, again, the bulb is the source of the energy. If that growth happens to die, that bulb has to have enough energy to regrow. So, what can you do? Well, you can create more energy by using the sun to create more energy for you. That way, you’re not relying as much on the bulb and more on the foliage.
Now, obviously, this is a pretty intensive step; you really have to commit to it. And so, you want to take either PVC or you want to take like cattle panel, the big cattle panel hoops, strap those over top of your beds, and put a nice thick plastic. Don’t go cheap; use something like a 6 mil. You can go that’s the thickness of the plastic, a 6 mil drop cloth or even greenhouse plastic is going to be great. You can get it very inexpensively. I’ve even used literally 6 mil drop cloths at my local hardware store; you can get them really inexpensively. Strap them over top of your beds and just commit to the growth. You’re going to want to have a lot of growth in order to generate that energy so you’re not relying on the bulbs themselves. And you don’t want to do this in like January; you’d only really do this in about March because at that point, that’s where, you know, if it was like early February, even mid-February, I probably would just use frost covering, you know, the frost fabric to protect my plants. I wouldn’t embrace the growth at that point, right? But if it’s early March and they’re already rocking and rolling, embrace the growth. It’s only going to cost you, you know, between 20 and 30 bucks to cover your beds with plastic, get them up and growing. But that’s just another option for you. You could also literally just say, well, I’ll just see where the cards fall, right? And we could just do nothing as well. That’s also, like I said, that’s my current option; that’s what I’m going to do because they haven’t grown into that caution territory. But even in that caution territory, if it’s late enough in the season and you think it’s not going to get quite that cold, in like the, you know, low 20s, you could just leave it too. Lots of options. But regardless, I hope this article has kind of helped to put your mind at ease, kind of see the fact that I do have growth here; you probably have similar growth. There’s no cause for concern. And even if there is cause for concern, there’s a couple of things that you can do to still salvage your harvest.
