garlic

When to plant garlic?

Botanical name
Allium sativum
Family
Amaryllidaceae

Garlic is planted outdoors from October to November, 3 cm deep. It is harvested from June to July.

Garlic is a perennial plant. The edible parts are the bulbs, leaves and flowers.

garlic
Photo: Ivar Leidus · CC BY-SA 4.0

Garlic through the year

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Outdoor planting
Harvest
15913172125293337414549
  • outdoor planting
  • harvest

In short

Outdoor planting
from October to November
weeks 42 to 48
the window opens a week after the first frost
Planting depth
3 cm
Spacing in the row
8 to 20 cm
30 to 60 cm between rows
Days to maturity
180 to 240 days
Harvest
from June to July
weeks 26 to 31

The first frost is not on the same day everywhere, so the recorded weeks are a guide and not a date.

Growing conditions

🪨
Soil
loamy
🧪
pH
5.5 to 6.5
☀️
Sun
full sun
💧
Water
moderate water
❄️
Frost
overwinters outdoors
🌱
Nutrients
a light feeder
🔁
Crop rotation
no sooner than the fifth year
📏
Height
30 to 45 cm
⚠️
Toxicity
toxic to cats and dogs, toxic parts: roots, bulbs, stems, leaves and flowers

The bulbs, leaves and flowers are listed as edible and as toxic at once. The toxicity is to cats and dogs, not to people.

Companions in the bed

Companion planting is tradition and not an agronomic claim. What is recorded is which pairs sources recommend and which they advise against.

lettuce cited

A row of garlic is set among the lettuce against visiting game.

potato cited

A row of garlic is set among the potatoes against visiting game.

  • “Cited” means the pair is named by one source or two.

Pests and diseases

Listed here is every problem for which the sources name this plant as a host. The problems are not listed in order of how common they are.

White rot of alliums

disease
Signs
Growth is stunted and the leaves yellow and die. Pulled up, the underground part is coated in a white to grey mould or crust holding thousands of tiny black fruiting bodies.
Prevention
Plant only stock confirmed healthy. Pull out infected plants and take them away, not onto the compost. The fruiting bodies stay in the soil for years, so do not plant alliums in an infected bed for four to five years. Rotation on its own does not wipe the disease out. Never plant garlic bought at a grocery shop.
What to do
For the home garden there is no product. The measure is the bed: remove the infected plants, work compost into the soil and leave a long break without alliums.

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Related plants

The plants below are in the same botanical family (Amaryllidaceae).

Sources about the plant: ASPCA Toxic and Non-Toxic Plants, Clemson Cooperative Extension, CliniTox Pflanzengifte, GBIF Backbone Taxonomy, KGZS Kmetijsko gozdarska zbornica Slovenije, KGZS Zavod Ljubljana, KGZS Zavod Nova Gorica, NC State Extension Plant Toolbox, Royal Horticultural Society, Smernice za strokovno utemeljeno gnojenje (Mihelič et al., MKGP 2011), Utah State University Extension, Wikidata. Checked between 14 and 28 August 2026. The problem descriptions also draw on: EPPO Global Database, University of Maryland Extension.