Garlic might rightfully earn the title as the spice of life, given its importance in so many delicious noms. Whether it’s taking a front-row seat in dishes like our garlic prawn and tomatillo pasta recipe or providing sweet, fragrant support to your stir fries, very few home cooks can get by without this essential allium (barring allergies or intolerances). Garlic may not be rare or expensive at the grocery store, but it couldn’t be easier to plant it in your garden ahead of the first winter chill. Done right, it can guarantee a spring/summer bumper crop to enhance your food through all four seasons. Plus, growing your own ingredients is always super satisfying!

While many garden denizens flourish in the summer warmth, garlic likes cool (even cold) weather and thrives in dreariness. If you have a basement, you can theoretically grow garlic in a pot in the dark! For your garden’s purposes, however, plant cloves right around the timing of the first frost. They’ll root and grow all winter beneath a protective cover of mulch and be ready for harvest come summertime. Garlic doesn’t need much from you in the way of attention, and some home gardeners report neglecting it completely until the weather warms up again. 

Perhaps the coolest part is that you could buy garlic bulbs once and never do it again, since you can use garlic cloves from your new garlic to grow next year’s supply. Furthermore, if you know the best way to store garlic, you can ensure that, once that first batch is ready, your family has abundant garlic to last you all year long.

The USDA’s plant hardiness map will fill you in on your specific agricultural zone, which can offer vital information about growing crops in your garden, including garlic. It’s important to know that, in order to sprout successfully, garlic requires a process called vernalization, in which a cold snap encourages it to start growing. In the United States, most gardeners in northern zones will see success when they plant late into the fall. Those in more balmy climes can chill their seed garlic in the fridge for a few weeks before planting, thereby tricking it into sprouting. 

There are both hardneck and softneck varieties of garlic; the latter will grow best in the cold, while softneck can handle milder weather. Softneck garlic is what’s primarily seen in supermarkets due to the fact that it can be stored for longer. Hardneck garlic has a more pronounced taste and may produce fewer cloves per bulb.

Whether you grow hardneck or softneck garlic, your efforts in your garden will pay off with delicious bulbs that you can add to many meals. Whether it’s eggs at breakfast, a tomato and garlic pasta for lunch, or a whole chicken stuffed with garlic cloves for dinner, your dishes will only be enhanced by the addition of this pungent crop. Once you’ve successfully planted your cloves in the fall, sit back and daydream about all the yumminess to come — and perhaps research a restaurant hack for peeling garlic to make your meal prep all the easier.