Many of our recipes call for green garlic, or garlic leaves. Before learning Chinese home cooking from Jing, I had never seen a recipe that used green garlic. Needless to say, while green onions (scallions) can be found in every grocery produce aisle, finding green garlic is impossible.
Grow your own
Fortunately, garlic is easy to grow, and to get green garlic, all one need do is harvest the garlic when it is still immature.
What you need:
- a garden plot, raised bed, or container
- potting soil
- sprouting garlic cloves
Growing your own garlic
Green garlic, and garlic leaves, come from immature garlic plants. Instead of waiting for the garlic to come to full maturity, you harvest the garlic while the leaves are still green and a bulb has formed below the soil. To plant garlic, you can use the cloves you buy from the store. If you find a clove that has begun to sprout, just plant it in your container garden and let it turn into a plant.
Yield: 1 plant per clove
Cost: $20 to $30
Equipment
- 1 container of suitable size You can use a plant pot and grow one or two plants indoors, or a container, such as a 5-gallon bucket or livestock tub to plant several cloves.
- 1 can of paint primer optional
- 1 can of bright paint optional
- 1 drill with large twist bit
Materials
- potting soil enough to fill the container of choice
Instructions
Prepare the container:
- I like to use discarded "lick tubs" used to provide range cattle with mineral blocks. These are easy to find at the town dump.
- Clean the container inside and out.
- Here in Texas, we get some days in excess of 100 degrees, so I like to paint my containers with a bright, reflective color, as the black tubs will absorb too much heat from the sun. Spray the outside with a coat of primer, such as Rustoleum, and let dry overnight. Spray over the primer with the finish color. Let dry over night. Add a second coat if desired.
- When the container is painted, turn it upside down and drill several holes in the bottom for drainage.
- A large container, like a lick tub, can hold 100 lbs of soil, making it too heavy to move without breaking the tub. So I fill the bottom with plastic milk jugs lying on their sides.
- Add potting soil, or a compost and soil mix.
Plant the garlic
- Set aside any bunches or cloves that are sprouting. Break the bunches into individual cloves, but do not peel the cloves.
- Make a small hole for the garlic clove with your finger. Place cloves about 2 inches apart.
- Insert the clove just deep enough to cover it. (Be sure to leave the pointed end up–this is where the sprout grows from.
- Cover the clove with soil, but do not cover the sprout.
- Keep the soil damp, but not wet.
- If you stagger the planting, you will have soon have plants ready for harvest while new sprouts are appearing.
Notes
- Do not let the soil dry out. Water lightly as needed to keep the soil damp, but not wet.
- You can also grow garlic indoors, especially if your climate is too cold or too hot for year round planting outside.
- Garlic is a hardy crop, and cloves planted in late fall or early winter will appear in the spring.
- Pick the garlic when the leaves are tender, for green garlic. Do not wait for the leaves to brown and die back, unless you are growing fully mature garlic.
- Green garlic can be picked and used any time while the leaves are green and tender.
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