When Should You Plant Garlic in The Fall?

Garlic is a favorite crop for many home gardeners for many reasons. It’s a hardy plant, and garlic can grow quite well into the wintertime, depending on your climate. It’s rapidly become a quintessential part of any fall vegetable garden. Unlike most vegetable crops, this spicy allium is planted in the fall and harvested the following summer.

Under the frosty blanket of winter, garlic cloves work their magic and turn into big, flavorful bulbs for storage and use throughout the rest of the year. The exact planting time depends on your climate and the type of garlic you choose.

Let’s dig into exactly when you should plant garlic in the fall based on your USDA hardiness zone!

The Long Answer

Garlic is one of the most low-maintenance crops you can grow, but it requires some planning to get the planting date right. This pungent onion-family crop requires a certain period of cold weather to develop bulbs.

The 4-8 weeks of cold temperatures (below 40°F) is called a vernalization period. Essentially, the cold weather promotes the plants to start growing roots, go dormant for the winter, and come back in the spring ready to grow into plump bulbs.

In cool climates, the weather will do the work for you. But warm southern growers may need to trick their garlic into thinking it has faced the winter elements. Either way, if your garden gets a frost, it’s best to get the garlic bulbs in while the weather is still bearable.

However, you don’t want to plant garlic too early. Early planting results in poor growth and less likelihood of bulbing. The cloves may rot. To find balance between planting too early or too late, remember these rules:

Use the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map to determine your growing zone and then head to Farmer’s Almanac to calculate the estimated first frost date of the autumn. This will give you a good idea of the best window of opportunity for getting your garlic in ground.

Planting Chart by Hardiness Zone

Planting Time Based on Variety

While you can technically grow garlic anywhere in the U.S., certain types are better for certain regions. The two main categories are hardneck and softneck garlic. Their cultivation is similar, but their planting times and hardiness are unique:

Hardneck garlic is more cold hardy and best for northern climates. It requires the chilly winter (vernalization period) to create full bulbs. As the name implies, hardneck garlic has a stiff central stalk. They are the only garlics that send up buttery-delicious scapes (flower stalks) during the summer. The cloves tend to be larger, easier to peel, and more complex in flavor.

Plant hardneck garlic right around the first fall frost to ensure that it gets a full 4-8 weeks of cold exposure below 40°F.

Softneck garlic is best for mild or warm climates. It only needs mild cold exposure (vernalization) to grow a bulb. This can be easily hacked with 5-10 weeks in a refrigerator before planting. Softneck varieties have a soft stalk for garlic braids. They have a longer storage life, smaller cloves, more wrappers, and mild to hot flavors.

In tropical climates, plant softneck garlic during the early winter after 5-10 weeks of refrigeration (not freezing).

Common Mistake: Planting Too Early

One of the biggest mistakes that beginner garlic growers make is planting too soon. This cold-hardy allium doesn’t just tolerate the cold, it needs it!

Think of garlic cloves (mistakenly called “seed garlic”) as plant storage capsules. Inside are all the starches, sugars, and genetics that the plant needs to grow before it can actually photosynthesize with its leaves.

Garlic is meant to establish some roots during the fall then go dormant through the winter. In spring, it uses all of that cold-weather root growth to push up a sprout and start growing more cloves until it forms a bulb.

In the best case, planting too early will simply cause your garlic to have small bulbs (which are no fun to peel in the kitchen). However, in the worst case scenario, planting too early can cause green shoots going up too early.

When frosts come, the shoot dies and the clove doesn’t have enough energy for spring. The clove could even dessicate (dry up), rot, or get eaten by rodents.

This is why spring-planted garlic can only ever become like a spring onion or scallion. It isn’t able to “bulb up” because it doesn’t get the cold exposure it needs. The same thing happens when southern or tropical growers try to plant during the fall: the weather is too hot and it stunts the growth of the cloves so they never develop bulbs.

Does Garlic Need Vernalization?

Garlic plants need vernalization (a period of chilling) to trigger the plants to develop the big, spicy bulbs we crave. Without vernalization, you can end up with pathetic bulbs or cracked cloves with very low yields.

Unlike most garden veggies, garlic evolved in the frigid northern temperatures and actually requires cold to grow to its full potential.

Should You Refrigerate Before Planting?

If you live in a zone that freezes (zones 7 and colder), refrigeration of garlic is not necessary. However, if you garden in zone 8 or warmer, your garlic can massively benefit from refrigeration before planting.

In areas with warm winters, you need to fool your garlic into thinking it’s way up north. Because softneck garlic requires less vernalization, southern growers typically opt for these varieties. But if you have the patience, hot climate gardeners can also grow hardneck varieties. The ideal refrigeration times are:

• Softneck Garlic in Warm Climates: Refrigerate for 5-8 Weeks
• Hardneck Garlic in Warm Climates: Refrigerate for 10-12 Weeks

The warmer your winters, the longer you need to refrigerate. For tropical gardeners, this means you will need to order your seed and get it in the fridge by September or October. When December or January rolls around, you can plant as the weather cools. A nice straw or leaf mulch can help keep the ground cool throughout the growth period.

Keep in mind that garlic should only be vernalized in the fridge at temperatures around 33-39°F. Do not freeze it! Instead, keep in a dry in a paper bag and to reduce the risk of rot.