If you are like us, garlic is a staple of the kitchen. If you want to enjoy fresh garlic grown right here in Kansas City, we’ve got a couple great options for you! Grow it yourself, or join our CSA and find it in your weekly box of locally grown produce!
We took advantage of the ground thawing to get the garlic crop planted for the 2015 CSA season. We planted 3,000 cloves of garlic. Given good weather and great soil, each of these cloves will form a garlic bulb ready in early July 2015. That’s right, we’re preparing for the 2015 CSA season, are you? For the third year at our Independence location, we’re offering a limited number of weekly boxes of chemical-free, super-fresh, local vegetables through our CSA program. We’re offering a Lee’s Summit pickup option again this year and a Liberty pickup location for the first time this season. You can sign up now at CSA Signup.
Garlic is a great crop to grow in your home garden. On a small scale, it’s not that hard to grow. Take a couple bulbs from the grocery store, break into cloves and plant the biggest cloves about 2″ deep and 6″ apart. This is a great job that the kids will enjoy helping with. Makes a bit of a mess in the living room if you start with 40 lbs of garlic like we did. We plant ours in raised beds for better drainage and root development. This year we planted in 4 rows on 30″ wide beds with walkways in between. Garlic like all related onion plants loves excellent soil high in organic matter.
The trick to success with growing garlic (we know because we’ve had our successes and failures) is to beat the weeds and the cold. Last winter was rough on the garlic. We didn’t get a chance to mulch it well enough to protect against the wintery blasts, so we lost 3/4 of what we planted. Then, since we didn’t have enough mulch, the weeds basically choked out the remainder. This time covered the beds with organic compost and a thick layer of straw.
Once the spring rains stop we’ll begin regular waterings with drip irrigation in the beds. This helps form the big garlic bulbs you are looking for.
So if you hurry up and plant before winter sets in and give garlic good soil, good mulch and regular waterings, you can enjoy your very own garlic next year. If dried properly it will last up to eight months.
Of course, If you want some organically grown garlic you could always sign up for our Kansas City CSA and enjoy garlic and many, many other types of vegetables every week throughout the growing season next year. Either way, we hope you can enjoy some fresh organically grown garlic next year!
