A Detailed Guide to Garlic Sprout Cultivation: How to Grow Garlic Sprouts

Growing garlic sprouts is not much different from growing other common vegetables, and it is even relatively easier. Since garlic is a vegetable that sprouts very easily, growing garlic sprouts does not require complex steps such as pre-sprouting. Let's take a look together below at exactly how garlic sprouts should be grown!

How to Grow Garlic Sprouts

1. Apply sufficient base fertilizer: Before planting, apply 5000 kg of organic fertilizer and 40 kg of potassium sulfate per mu. After fertilizing, deep plow 25 cm and prepare the soil finely.

2. Seed treatment: Before sowing, remove garlic seeds that are diseased, dry-rotted, or damaged, and when breaking apart the cloves, grade them into three classes: large, medium, and small. Three days before sowing, place the cloves by grade into containers and soak them in water, changing the water once a day, so the garlic seeds absorb enough water and germinate faster. This step also helps adjust the farming schedule and makes graded management easier. Before sowing, mix the garlic seeds with sieved superphosphate to meet the phosphorus needs of the cloves during germination, using 30 kg of superphosphate per mu of garlic seeds.

3. Plant at the right time: A temperature of 17-19°C is suitable. Before sowing, make beds 1.5 m wide, open furrows at a row spacing of 20-23 cm (furrow depth 10 cm), then place the garlic cloves at a plant spacing of 5 cm, planting 55,000 plants per mu. When sowing, plant by grade so management is easier. When placing the garlic seeds, keep them upright, aligned at the top but not at the bottom, so the covering soil is even in thickness and seedlings emerge uniformly. The planting depth is 6-7 cm, and the covering soil thickness should generally just bury the tips of the garlic cloves.

4. Management after planting: After planting, water thoroughly once to encourage the garlic cloves to germinate. After seedlings emerge, water once more to promote seedling growth. After the soil surface dries, hoe shallowly to preserve moisture and prevent soil crusting. After each watering, earth up once so the ridges reach 5-7 cm high. When the seedlings reach the 3-leaf stage, spray the whole plant with a 20 mg/kg gibberellin solution to promote stem and leaf growth; when the seedlings reach the 4-leaf stage, spray the stems and leaves with 0.8% sugar water, spraying once every 6 days for 2-3 consecutive sprays.

5. Harvest at the right time: Before the Start of Winter, first-grade sprouts can be sold first according to market conditions. When harvesting, take care to remove the fibrous roots and old leaves. After the temperature drops below 0°C, build small arched sheds over the remaining plants for insulated cultivation. For those marketed after January of the following year, add straw mats over the small arched sheds to protect against cold.

Growing Conditions for Garlic

1. Temperature: Garlic prefers cool environmental conditions. Its suitable growing temperature is 12-25°C. The minimum temperature for garlic clove sprouting is 3-5°C, sprouting accelerates rapidly above 12°C, and around 20°C is the optimum temperature for germination. The suitable temperature for seedling growth is 14-20°C. When seedlings have 4-5 leaves, they can tolerate low temperatures above -16°C. The suitable temperature during the garlic scape elongation stage is 15-20°C, and the suitable temperature during bulb expansion is 20-25°C. If the temperature is too high, bulb growth stops and the plant enters dormancy. Garlic is a green-plant vernalization type. Generally, from garlic sprouting to the seedling stage, if exposed to a low temperature of 0-4°C for 30-40 days, it passes through the vernalization stage.

2. Light: Garlic is a long-day plant. Under more than 12 hours of sunlight and a temperature of 15-20°C, the terminal bud on the stem disc turns to flower bud differentiation and rapidly bolts. The development of garlic scapes is affected not only by temperature and light but also by nutritional conditions. If the seed cloves are too small, the soil is poor, sowing is too late, density is too high, or fertilizer and water are insufficient, it is possible to form scape-less garlic or single-clove garlic. In addition, the formation of garlic bulbs requires long daylight. Most varieties under short daylight only differentiate new leaves and cannot form bulbs, but some early-maturing varieties are not very strict about the photoperiod.

3. Water: Garlic leaves are of a drought-tolerant ecotype, but the root system is shallow in the soil and has weak water absorption capacity, so in the early stage of vegetative growth, the soil should be kept moist to prevent it from becoming too dry, especially during the flower stalk elongation and bulb expansion stages. Especially during the flower stalk elongation and bulb expansion stages, more water is needed, and the soil should be kept moist often. In the later stage of bulb development, watering should be controlled and soil moisture reduced to promote bulb maturity and improve storability, so as to avoid rotting of the neck (base of the pseudostem) and scattering of cloves caused by high humidity, high temperature, and lack of oxygen, as well as blackening of the garlic skin, thereby reducing quality.

4. Soil: Garlic is not strict about soil type, but its root system is weak, so loam rich in humus and fertile is best. Soil that is loose, well aerated, and strong in water retention and drainage is suitable for bulb growth and development, making garlic bulbs large and uniform, with good quality and high yield. Garlic grown in sandy soil has a strong spicy flavor, loose texture, and poor storability. The suitable soil pH is 6-7. If too acidic, root tips become thick and stop elongating; if too alkaline, seed cloves rot easily, and small bulbs and single-clove garlic increase, reducing yield.

5. Nutrition: Garlic prefers complete organic fertilizers containing nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Increasing the application of humus fertilizer can increase garlic yield. Generally, the fertilization amount per mu is 8.6 kg nitrogen, 7.4 kg phosphorus, and 8.6 kg potassium.

Planting Time for Garlic

The planting time for garlic depends on local climate conditions and is also related to variety. Different growth stages have different temperature requirements. The garlic planting season is in autumn, generally from late September to early October, and the harvest season is between spring and summer of the following year. The most suitable period for garlic planting is to have the plants grow to 5-6 leaves before overwintering. At this time, the plants have the strongest cold resistance, will not be frozen to death in the severe winter, and lay a good foundation for the plants to smoothly pass through vernalization. In the Yangtze River Basin and areas to its south, sowing is generally done in mid-to-late September. In areas north of the Yangtze River, because the climate is cold, sowing needs to be advanced to August.

Harvesting Garlic

1. Harvesting garlic scapes: When the scape extends 6-7 cm out of the leaf sheath, it can be pulled. For some vigorous varieties, because the garlic scape is thicker, it breaks easily when pulled, so the stick-piercing method can be used, that is, use a bamboo stick with a sharpened tip. When pulling the scape, hold the scape with one hand and insert the bamboo stick into the stem with the other hand (at a point 5-7 cm above the ground on the pseudostem), cut off the garlic scape, and then pull the garlic scape out.

2. Harvesting garlic bulbs: Garlic can be harvested about 25 days after the garlic scapes are harvested (when the pseudostem lodges). For other varieties whose pseudostems do not lodge, they can be harvested when the basal leaves begin to turn yellow and the outer skin of the garlic bulb becomes thin. Mature garlic, if not harvested in time, especially when encountering rain.

Growing garlic sprouts can, on the one hand, allow you to harvest garlic sprouts and sell them as a side dish, and on the other hand, you can also wait until the garlic bolts and then use the garlic scapes, which is also a good choice. For these two different products, harvest time is very important, so the planting goal must be made clear.