Sow garlic now before the cold weather sets in, just in time for the cloves to catch a good dose of frost so they split and form big, plump bulbs next year.
You’ll find big fat garlic bulbs on sale right now from our garden centre here in Lymington, certified virus-free and ready to plant outside. Choose from softneck varieties like ‘Solent Wight’, which you can dry and store for your winter supplies; or hardnecks like ‘Red Sicilian’ or ‘Lautrec Wight’, which don’t store as well but are said to have the best flavour. They also produce a second crop of curly gourmet garlic scapes (actually the flower spikes) for summer cooking.
Sow cloves directly outside by breaking up bulbs and selecting only the largest cloves for planting (the larger the clove, the bigger the eventual bulb of garlic). Then make a hole with your finger, press the clove in and backfill so the clove is buried about 3-4cm beneath the surface, spacing cloves 15cm apart along the row.
You can also give your garlic a head start by starting cloves off in pots of multi-purpose compost. They’ll sprout green tips within a few weeks: once the roots are filling the pot, plant out right away.