How to Grow Garlic Hydroponically a Beginner Guide

Innovative Home Gardening: The Self-Watering Device

Growing garlic is always exciting as it adds flavors to countless recipes. With a self-watering device, you can efficiently maintain a garden, whether it’s indoor or outdoor.  A self-watering product is a new smart home invention that helps your plant to develop and takes proper care in your absence. This device is a great replacement for frequent travelers and requires a low-maintenance garden. This self-watering planter can successfully sense the plant's need for water and calculate based on the circumstances of soil, temperature, humidity, sunlight, etc. Our automatic watering product is made for indoor and outdoor plants and has irrigation timers to adjust the watering cycles and schedules automatically. Unlike the manual drippers, the Letpot self-watering planters work on auto, which sprinkles water at the base 24/7 when the plants need it. 

Choosing The Types of Garlic to Grow

Hardneck Garlic: 

If the atmosphere in your area is too frosty and has harsh winters, hardneck varieties will be ideal for you to cultivate. They got one ring of large clove around a hard stem, with few large cloves per bulb than softnecks. Moreover, hardnecks produce much bigger scapes which are amazing addition to add to your cooking. Some popular varieties are chesnok red, early Italian, music, red Russian, German red, Spanish roja, etc.  

Softneck Garlic: 

The softeneck varieties will be your first choice in warmer climates with warm winters. They have more intense flavor with a bigger bulb with small clover per bulb because the texture doesn’t divert to scapes like hardnecks. 

They do not have scapes, but they have dense heads and tightly wrapped cloves, which makes them stronger at preventing diseases and helps them to retain moisture. If you are looking for long-time storage garlic varieties, then softeneck will be your ideal choice. Some of the popular varieties are corsican Red, inchelium red, silver rose, silver white, French red, California early and late whites, etc. 

Where Should I Grow Garlic Plants?

Like other plants, garlic requires a moderate amount of light to grow and develop fully with good flavors. Sunlight is an amazing choice for plant growth, and you need to ensure a good spot that's 6+ hours of direct sunlight. Even with a bright window, sometimes you will not get a good production supply. That is why we recommend you use a grow light for anyone who wants constant garlic production. 

Grow Light : 

Garlic plants need 6+ hours of light to develop properly. You need to make it bright enough to get an equivalent amount with a grow light. Get a 24W grow bulb and put it 6 inches away from the top of the plant. It will give your plants essential PPFD (the standard measure of brightness) of 500 μmol/m²/s.

When to Plant Garlic?

Garlic is mostly planted in the fall between late September and November. However, in areas where winter is frosty, plant it 6 to 8 weeks before the first frost date before the ground starts to freeze. Garlic plants do best when it experiences cold weather, at least 40 degrees C, that lasts 4 to 8 weeks. If you plant the garlic cloves in the fall, they will have the time to develop healthy roots before the temperature drops fully, but not enough time for top growth. When the early spring arrives, the bulb wakes up and starts to produce garlic rapidly before the heat of summer. In mild temperatures, you can plant garlic cloves in late February or March, but it will result in slow growth of garlic bulbs, and they won’t be large enough. However, you can still have garlic and green shoots with a mild garlic texture. 

 

Production and Farming System for Growing Garlic

Step 1: Garlic sowing：

Pick the best and most large garlic cloves from a fresh garlic head. Be careful when you take out the cloves where they are attached to the plate. If the base is damaged while plucking, the garlic will not grow. Keep the papery husk of the clove while planting. 

Step 2: Soil cultivation and sowing skills 

Before planting the cloves, prepare a couple of tablespoons 5-10-10 of complete fertilizer, bonemeal, or fish meal underneath the soil where the base garlic+ clove will rest. 

Step 3: Garlic planting pose

Plant 1 clove 2 inches deep in the planter, in their upright posture where the root will face down and the pointed end will face up.

Step 4: Precautions for planting in winter

Put mulch when the winter comes, as you don’t want to frost the ground. Also, young shoots can’t live when the temperature goes down to 20°F / -6°C. After winter, remove the mulch, as warm temperatures will help the shoots to come out from the ground. 

Step 5: Precautions in garlic planting

Remove the flower shoots, as it may decrease the growth of garlic bulbs. Garlic needs a heavy amount of food, so make sure to add fertilizer to keep them growing stronger. Keep the planting site weed-free, as they need proper nutrients. Keep the ph level of garlic around 6 to 6.5 and avoid adding too much nutrient mixture. Aim for creating a balanced mixture with a variety of nutrients. 

Step 6: Self-watering planter

The self-watering planter will make sure the plants grow freely. The double-layer watering option helps your plants have 18-30 days of storage. The self-watering planter will provide water when the garlic needs and you do not need to worry about over or under-watering. 

Step 7: Pick the garlic at the optimum time

When the garlic starts to bloom, the green stalk's known as “scapes” emerge. Pull out some, eat them if you see too many scapes growing, and use gloves while plucking them. 

Preventing Diseases and Pests in Garlic Plantation

Take simple measures to avoid any annual diseases and pests right from the first clove of garlic you are planting. Make sure the clove is healthy and comes from a good source. Avoid using grocery store garlic because it might carry diseases.  Mice, ants, aphids, and other small insects might nest in the mulch. You can convert it to plastic mulch or landscaping fabric to avoid that. Some plant diseases can come around, so use a moderate amount of pesticide by following their instructions. 

The Excitement of Harvesting Garlic Bulbs

Harvesting is always a great part as you get to see those beautiful garlic bulbs that have been growing underground. Garlic bulbs are ready to harvest when you see the leaves turning yellow or brown. The harvesting time will be the end of the summer (from June to August). We often dig up the garlic bulb before the scapes go yellow, as some types prepare early for harvesting. The garlic head will divide into plump cloves, and the outside skin will turn thick and dry if you don’t harvest the garlic in time. Be careful when you dig garlic, as it tends to bruise easily.