Garlic is such a great vegetable! It’s a star in the kitchen, it’s healthy AND it’s easy to cultivate, even if you’re a complete beginner. Don’t believe me? Then read on! This guide covers everything from choosing the right planting time to storing your harvest. I’ll give you an overview of the different types of garlic and show you exactly how to grow garlic. Following these steps, an abundant harvest is inevitable!
Choosing your garlic
Hardneck vs Softneck
Garlic is divided into two groups: hardneck and softneck varieties.
Hardnecks, as the name indicates, develop a hard flower stem or scape, which is edible, as well. Hardneck bulbs form a single ring of large, easy-to-peel cloves around a central stem. Hardnecks are more cold-tolerant than softnecks, which makes them wonderful for planting in autumn, and they have a strong, sharp flavour. My favourite hardneck varieties are ‘Ajo Rosa’, ‘Deutscher Porzellan’ and ‘Chesnok Wight’.
Softneck varieties build a soft stalk and usually have a less pronounced flavour. They are better suited for warmer climates or spring cultivation. The garlic found in stores is usually a softneck variety, as these types are better suited for machine handling. Softneck varieties I like are ‘Thermidrome’, ‘Germidour’ and ‘Cledor’.
I recommend starting with hardneck varieties. They’re more reliable, produce bigger cloves, and you get the bonus of garlic scapes to cook with.
Even though its name suggests otherwise, elephant garlic is not a garlic variety but a leek relative. Nevertheless, it can be harvested and used just like real garlic.
Cloves vs Cormels
There are two different ways of planting garlic:
The first option is planting cloves. You simply put single cloves into the earth, and each clove grows into a garlic bulb. It’s easy and the fastest way to get a good harvest.
Option number two is planting cormels. When we let garlic blossom, it will build out tiny mini-cloves or cormels on the scape. You can plant them as well, but in their first year, they’ll only become a clove. This clove can be planted a second time, and then it’ll develop into a bulb.
Cultivating garlic from cormels is more cumbersome and takes longer to produce a harvest. On the pro side, you don’t have to sacrifice cloves from your harvest. I mostly choose the faster way of planting cloves, though.
Where to buy seed garlic
It seems easy to buy some garlic in the supermarket and plant it in your garden. However, supermarket garlic usually comes from sites in very warm climates. If your climate is cold, store-bought cloves won’t grow very well in your garden.
Furthermore, supermarket garlic is usually treated with a sprouting inhibitor to prevent sprouting in the market. However, this also keeps the cloves from sprouting in your garden.
If you must buy garlic for growing in the supermarket, go for organic garlic, which is less likely to have been treated with an inhibitor.
A better possibility to get good garlic seeds for planting is to look for local seed manufacturers. Their cloves are well-adjusted to your climate. Or ask friends who already cultivate garlic if they’ll give you a few cloves for planting.
I always set the largest bulbs of my garlic harvest aside and use their cloves for planting. That way, I develop and gather garlic cloves that are perfectly adjusted to my garden conditions.
Choosing the right planting site for garlic
Sunlight
First of all, select an area that gets at least 6 – 8 hours of full sunlight per day. Light shade is ok, but the bulbs and thus the yield will be smaller. The best position for planting garlic is on a south-facing bed without any tree shade.
Soil
Garlic is a bit fussy about the soil it wants to grow in. It likes a loose, crumbly, yet not too light soil that its roots can easily penetrate.
The most important factor for where to grow garlic is drainage. Garlic will rot in waterlogged soil, so good drainage is essential.
Garlic doesn’t like weeds (who does?), so make sure that the bed you want to cultivate garlic in is weed-free.
Also, mixing in compost won’t hurt as it’ll help to improve the soil structure, drainage and fertility. Fresh manure, however, is not suitable for the soil you want to plant garlic in, as it causes bulb splitting.
If your garden doesn’t provide good conditions for garlic, think about creating a raised bed. You can even cultivate garlic in planting pots.
How to plant garlic: step-by-step
If you follow this step-by-step guide, you’ll be rewarded with an abundance of garlic next summer!
When to plant garlic
There are two possibilities for when to plant garlic:
Autumn
Planting garlic cloves between the end of September and the beginning of November will give them a head start. They’ll grow until it becomes too cold, overwinter and restart growing in spring. That way, the bulbs will be much larger, and that’s why I recommend planting garlic in autumn.
Spring
If you didn’t plant garlic in autumn, you can still do so in early spring. Plant the cloves as soon as the soil is workable. Depending on your growth zone, that’s between mid-February to late March. Garlic needs some cold to develop bulbs and not shoot into bloom; therefore, you must plant it early enough to still catch some of the cold weather. Garlic that has been planted in spring will develop equally fine bulbs, albeit smaller ones, that you can harvest the same year.
How to plant garlic
Soil preparation
Before planting, thoroughly remove any weeds from the patch as they compete for nutrients.
It’s always a good idea to add some compost to the patch to enhance nutrients and organic matter in the soil. You can also dig in manure, which should, however, be well-rotten, as fresh manure would be too sharp for garlic.
Loosen the soil a bit with a garden fork by digging into it and wiggling the fork a bit. That way, the garlic can set its roots deeply into the ground, and it may even be easier to harvest the bulbs in summer.
Both the compost/manure and the loosening of the soil support good drainage and soil structure.
Planting garlic
The easiest and most common way is to break up the bulb and stick the single cloves into the soil. Use the largest and healthiest cloves – usually the outer ones – and leave the papery skin on as it protects the clove from rot and disease. Discard any cloves that are soft or squishy, discoloured, diseased or in any other way damaged.
The pointed tip must face upwards. That’s where it’ll start sprouting, and we want it to be able to sprout upwards via the sunlight. The flat, rounded end will produce the roots.
I recommend planting garlic in rows with a distance of 15 cm between cloves and 25 cm between rows. Within the rows, you make holes of about 4 – 6 cm (1,5 – 2,5 inches) for cloves, 1 – 2 cm (0.3 – 1 inch) for cormels. A dibble can help with preparing the holes. Put one garlic clove or cormel per hole and cover it with soil that you slightly press around it.
Break up the bulb so that you get out the single cloves.
Break up the bulb so that you get out the single cloves.
Always plant garlic with the tip facing upwards.
Watering and mulching
A great advantage of planting garlic in autumn is that usually the soil is already sufficiently moist. That way, we don’t have to water the cloves at all. If it’s very dry when planting, water the rows with the freshly set cloves.
I don’t water my garlic after planting, but depending on your climate, it may be necessary to do so.
If you’ve followed me for some time, you know that I’m a huge fan of mulching. So, when I’ve planted my garlic, I put on a thin layer of mulch, either straw, dried leaves, well-rotted compost or grass clippings. When the sprouts show and the weather tends toward freezing, I add more mulch to protect the cloves from extreme cold and keep the soil moist and weed-free. However, garlic can develop fungal and viral diseases when mulched too thickly, so make sure that the mulch layer is not thicker than about 3 – 5 cm (1 – 2 inches).
How much to plant
As a rule of thumb, I calculate 8 – 10 cloves per person. For my family of three, that means about 30 cloves of garlic, which may sound much but doesn’t take up much space.
If you’re very pressed for space, garlic can be planted well between strawberries, carrots, parsnips, lettuce or tomatoes, where it’s more of a gap filler and needs very little space. As a side effect, those plants profit from garlic’s antifungal characteristics as well as its repellent smell. If you want to read up more on companion planting and what veggies go well together, hop over here.
If you’re a beginner to vegetable gardening, I recommend starting with 10 – 20 cloves to get a feel for it.
How to Care for Your Garlic
Autumn (if Autumn planted)
2 -4 weeks after planting, green shoots will appear. When it gets too cold, the plants will stop growing and go dormant. Don’t worry, they’re fine, even though they have sprouted already.
Apart from removing weeds, you don’t have to do anything for your garlic. If it’s very dry, water it, but that’s usually not necessary. Cover it with mulch, though, to protect it from cold temperatures and drying out.
Winter (December – February)
In winter, the plant is dormant, and although there’s no visible growth above ground, the roots develop further underground. This cold period is essential for producing bulbs.
During this time of rest, you’ve got nothing to do. Don’t disturb your plants. After severe frost periods, you may want to check that the cloves have not been heaved out of the ground. If so, just press them back in carefully.
Spring (March – May)
When the air grows warmer in spring, scrape the mulch away so that the soil can warm up.
If you haven’t planted garlic in autumn, early spring is the second-best time to do so. As soon as the soil is workable, plant the cloves as described above.
Weeding
Remove weeds as they will compete with the garlic for nutrients and water. It’s best to weed by hand as garlic has shallow roots that can easily be destroyed by hoeing.
The leaves grow tall and lush now, and the plant builds up energy for bulb development.
If the soil is compacted, gently loosen it around the garlic plants to improve drainage.
Watering
Keep the garlic well-watered, especially as the weather gets warmer, but avoid over-watering it. Inconsistent watering can cause bulb splitting, that’s why watering a little but more often is better than occasional soaking. Always water at ground level and not overhead to avoid diseases. The best time for watering is early morning.
To check your soil’s moisture, dig in about 2 – 5 cm (1-2 inches) deep with your finger: the soil should be moist but not soggy.
Fertilising
A healthy dose of a light nitrogen-emphasised fertiliser, for example, stinging nettle manure or blood meal, provides nutrients in spring. By mid-May, you should stop all feeding, as it would lead to leaf development instead of bulb formation.
Pest and disease control
Keep an eye out for pests and diseases like thrips or mould. Remove ill plants immediately to keep pests and diseases at bay.
Scape removal (hardneck varieties only)
These beauties are the scapes. If you let them on the plant, they’ll burst into bloom, which is quite a pretty sight and later on develop cormels. If you want to get large garlic bulbs, however, you must cut the scapes off.
If you cultivate hardneck garlic, remove the scapes (i.e. flower stalks) as they form so that all the energy goes into the bulb and thus enhances growth. The scapes are ready to harvest when they’ve made 1-2 complete curls and are still tender and flexible. You should be able to snap them off easily with your fingers. If you wait too long, they’ll straighten out, become woody and fibrous, and will be tough to eat. The best test is to gently bend the scape – if it bends easily, it’s perfect. If it feels stiff or starts to crack rather than bend smoothly, you’ve waited a bit too long (though they’re still edible, just tougher).
The cool thing is that scapes are quite delicious themselves! They have a mild garlic flavour and you can use them like spring onions. Chop them into stir-fries, pasta or pesto, for example, or grill them whole as a side dish. Once cut off, they can be stored in the fridge for 2 – 3 weeks.
Common problems and solutions
We always hope that our crops go through the seasons without any problems and reward us with a large harvest. But although garlic is a very undemanding crop, some issues may occur. Let’s have a look and see how we can deal with them:
Yellow Leaves
If your garlic’s bottom leaves turn yellow in June/July, that’s perfectly normal: the bulbs are maturing.
If the problem occurs in spring, however, we’ve got a problem! Usually, the cause is overwatering or a nutrient deficiency.
What to do: Check if the soil is waterlogged. If it’s dry, feed the garlic with dissolved nettle manure or liquid seaweed.
White Rot
White rot is a serious disease! The first step is an early yellowing of the leaves and the formation of a white, fluffy mould on the bulb base. The bulb then becomes soft and decays, developing a strong odour.
What to do: Remove the affected plants immediately and throw them in the bin. Do NOT compost them!
White rot cannot be cured or treated, and it remains in the soil for 15 – 20 years. That means, if you get white rot in your garden, you can’t plant any alliums (garlic, onions, leeks) on that patch for at least 15 years.
To prevent white rot, you should only use certified seed garlic and practice crop rotation. Also, make sure your soil has good drainage.
Rust
When your garlic leaves show orange-brown spots or streaks, they have caught rust. It usually appears in damp conditions and is more common in softneck varieties.
What to do: Improve the air circulation by removing weeds and – in the first place – planting your cloves with enough space in between.
Rust usually doesn’t kill the plant, but you should remove all badly affected leaves. Do NOT compost them.
You’ll still get a usable harvest, but it may be slightly reduced.
Bolting (Premature Flowering)
While flower stems or scapes are normal in hardneck varieties in May/June, you have to watch out for scapes that appear much earlier than that and scapes in softneck varieties.
The phenomenon is more common in spring-planted garlic and is usually caused by temperature stress or the wrong variety.
What to do: Remove the flower stems immediately (these you CAN compost). The plant will still produce a bulb, albeit a smaller one.
To prevent bolting, plant your garlic at the right time and choose appropriate varieties.
No Bulbs Formed
Usually, the cause for no bulbs forming is the wrong timing in planting. Garlic needs several weeks of low temperatures to sprout, which is why it’s best to plant it in autumn. If you’ve planted it either too late in spring or this spring didn’t have a cold period, the garlic didn’t get the trigger for forming bulbs.
Another, less common cause is that you fertilised with too much nitrogen late in the growing season. Nitrogen enhances leaf growth but not fruit (or in this case: bulb) formation.
What to do: Stick to autumn planting for reliable results. If you plant in spring, do it as early as the soil is workable.
Harvesting and storing garlic
When to harvest garlic
As a rule of thumb, garlic takes 8 – 10 months if it’s an autumn variety and 4 -5 months for spring varieties to become ready for harvesting.
We can harvest it, therefore, in June and July if it was planted in autumn and in July and August if it was planted in spring.
The exact timing, of course, depends on the variety and the weather.
How to know when garlic is ready to be harvested?
You know that the garlic is ready for harvesting when the bottom third to half of the leaves have turned yellow or brown, while the upper leaves are still green and start to flop over. The bulb wrapper must still be intact, and the bulbs should be closed. If you wait too long, the bulbs may open up, which reduces their storage time.
Don’t wait until the leaves die back or collapse completely. In that case, the bulbs will split and deteriorate, which, as a consequence, doesn’t allow them to be stored well.
If you’re unsure about whether your garlic is ready to harvest, carefully dig up one bulb to check its size and development. If the bulb is clearly defined and shows a tight skin, it’s ready.
Harvesting
Choose a dry day for harvesting. Dry soil makes lifting the bulbs out easier and cleaner, and they can be stored for a longer time.
Loosen the soil around the garlic with a garden fork and pull out the bulbs. Clean up the garlic right on the bed by carefully removing the outer skin, which is usually already very loose. That way, there won’t be any soil on the bulbs, and they are ready to cure.
Curing
Curing is an essential step after harvesting garlic. It dries the outer skins and seals the cloves, and by that dramatically extends the garlic’s storage life. If you skip this step, your garlic will rot within a few weeks!
For curing, place the garlic into bundles and hang them in a dry, well-ventilated area for about two weeks. If you have a canopy at your house, a garage or even a balcony that’s protected from rain, that’s an ideal place. Just make sure that the garlic is out of direct sunlight, as that would cause bleaching and a degradation of the flavour.
If you don’t have a place to hang your garlic up to cure, however, you can always cure it lying flat on a rack or a slatted shelf. Keep the stems attached (they’ll dry down into the bulb) and don’t pile the bulbs on top of each other. Every few days, you should turn the bulbs to ensure that they’ll dry evenly. If you’ve got no place outdoors, cure your garlic indoors in a dry place (no moist basements!).
Depending on your curing location (and the weather, if it is outdoors), curing takes between 2 and 4 weeks. The garlic is ready for storage when the bulbs’ outer skins have become papery and dry, the stems are completely dry and brittle, and the roots have shrivelled.
Once your garlic is fully cured, you should brush off any remaining soil, but don’t wash the garlic! Then, either braid the stems if you have softnecks or bind the hardnecks together. Now it’s ready for storage.
How to store garlic
There are a few things we need to observe when storing garlic.
Optimal Storage Conditions
The perfect environment for storing garlic is a cool place with temperatures between 10 and 15 °C (50 – 60 °F). It should be dark or at least dim, because light causes sprouting. The place should have low humidity (about 50 – 60 %) and good air circulation.
These conditions are commonly found in a pantry, utility or spare room. I store my garlic in the basement, which is cool, dim, but thankfully not damp.
Storage methods
There are some ways to store garlic in such a way that it will last until the next harvest:
Mesh bags or nets
Putting garlic bulbs into mesh bags or nets is an easy method to store garlic, especially hardneck varieties, for the long term. The bags or nets provide excellent air circulation and make it easy to check on the bulbs. You can easily hang them from the ceiling or a shelf, and thus they won’t take up too much room
Braiding (softneck only)
Braid the stalks of softneck garlic while they’re still slightly flexible and hang them from the ceiling or a shelf in a cool and dry place. As with mesh bags, braids provide good air circulation and don’t take up much room.
Wooden crates or boxes
Put an old newspaper on the bottom of a crate or box and put garlic bulbs on it. The bulbs should not touch. Cover the bulbs with a second newspaper and go on layering the bulbs in the crate. Don’t stack them too deep, though. 3 – 4 layers is the maximum. This is a good method of storage for large harvests, but you must check the bottom layers occasionally and discard any rotten bulbs as soon as possible.
Paper bags
This is a good method for small quantities: poke some ventilation holes in a paper bag and put the bulbs in. You can hang the bag from the ceiling or a shelf if it’s not too heavy, or just store it on the shelf.
How NOT to store garlic
There are some mistakes in storing garlic that you need to avoid.
Storing in plastic bags
Plastic bags don’t allow for air circulation and trap moisture. Garlic will rot.
Storing in the fridge
Remember, garlic needs a cold period to sprout. If you store it in the fridge, you’ll imitate that cold period, and your garlic will be doing just that.
Storing in humid areas
High humidity and dampness will cause your garlic to mould and/or rot
Storing together with potatoes
Potatoes release a plant hormone in the form of a gas called ethylene. Garlic is sensitive to that gas and will start to sprout when exposed to it.
Expose garlic to light
Light, as well, stimulates sprouting, so keep your garlic in a dark or at least dim place.
Crop rotation
Crop rotation is essential for a sustainable gardening practice; it balances soil nutrients and thus improves soil health in the long run.
As with most vegetables, it’s not advisable to plant garlic in the same place year after year. Not only would it leach out the soil, but it would pave the path for pests and diseases. Instead, wait at least 3 – 4 years before replanting garlic in the same spot and don’t plant it where any other alliums (onions, leeks or shallots) have grown recently, this season or the season before.
Crop rotation prevents all this disease build-up (especially white rot) and breaks pest life cycles. If white rot appears, don’t plant any alliums there for 15 – 20 years.
Companion planting
Garlic is a member of the allium family and therefore mustn’t be planted near any other members of that family, like
Onions
Leek
Shallots
Chives or
Spring onions.
Many plants, however, are great companions for garlic. These are
Tomatoes
Lettuce and salads
All members of the brassica family (cabbage, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower
Pumpkins, zucchini and courgettes
Peas and beans
Root vegetables like carrots, parsnips and potatoes
Strawberries
Fruit trees or shrubs
Growing garlic in containers
If you don’t have a garden space, you can still grow your own garlic in containers. In fact, it’s quite easy to cultivate garlic without a garden bed, making it the perfect crop for people who only have a patio or a balcony.
There are, however, a few things you need to observe when growing garlic in containers.
Container requirements
The container you want to grow garlic in should be at least 30 cm (12 inches) high to give the roots enough space. The width is not that important; any size will do. The wider your container is, the more cloves you can plant.
Also, the material does not matter. Your planting container can be made from terracotta, plastic or even fabric; all pots work.
What is essential, however, is that the container has some holes in it to ensure good drainage. Garlic will mould and rot in moist soil, so it’s important that water can drain off quickly.
Spacing
When planting garlic cloves in containers, you must observe the same spacing as in a garden bed. Put the cloves 10 – 15 cm (4 – 6 inches) apart. If you just have small one-litre pots, put one clove per pot. In a larger pot with a diameter of 40 cm, you can put 6 – 9 cloves.
Container care differences
Caring for garlic in containers is slightly different from a garden bed.
For example, containers tend to dry out faster. For that reason, you must check the soil regularly, at best daily, and water if necessary.
Use a good-quality, multi-purpose compost mixed with 20 % perlit or grit for drainage.
Also, garlic in containers may need a light feeding in spring as the container soil has limited nutrients.
If you plant your garlic in autumn, which I recommend, you must put the container against a wall or insulate it if the weather gets very cold.
In general, put the containers in a place with full sun. Move them to track the sun if possible.
Apart from that, garlic has the same requirements as in a garden bed. It still needs a cold period to sprout, so leave it outside all winter. Planting and harvesting timing are the same as for garlic cultivated in patches.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I grow garlic from supermarket cloves?
Technically, it’s possible, but I don’t recommend it for several reasons:
First of all, supermarket garlic is mostly imported and mostly from climates that are very different from yours.
And although it may look good and is safe to eat, the cloves may carry diseases that you’d spread in your garden when planting them.
Lastly, supermarket garlic is almost always treated with sprouting inhibitors to prevent the bulbs from sprouting in the market.
If you want to experiment, though, choose organic supermarket garlic, which is less likely to be treated. You must understand, however, that the results will be unpredictable.
My recommendation: Instead of using supermarket garlic, spend 5€/£/$ (or whatever your currency is) on certified seed garlic for much better results.
Can I plant garlic cloves that have sprouted in storage?
Yes!
Sprouted garlic cloves from your pantry or storage can still be planted, and they’ll often grow just fine. The green sprout shows the clove is viable and ready to grow.
However, sprouted cloves may have used some of their stored energy, so they might produce slightly smaller bulbs than unsprouted ones. Plant them as you would any other clove, with the sprout pointing upward. Just make sure the clove itself is still firm – if it’s soft, mushy, or mouldy, discard it.
This is actually a great way to use up garlic that’s past its prime for cooking!
Why didn’t my garlic form bulbs?
Garlic needs 6 – 8 weeks of cold (0 – 10 °C / 30 – 50 °F) to trigger bulbing (i.e. the formation of bulbs). If you plant it in a mild spring or too late in spring (March is already too late) without a cold period, it will not form bulbs.
Another reason for no bulbs is that you fertilised your garlic with nitrogen late in its season. While it’s ok to add a little nitrogen in March/April, it’s counterproductive to do so later, as nitrogen promotes the growth of leaves over bulbs.
Lastly, maybe you harvested too early, and what looks like no bulb is actually just an immature bulb.
My recommendation: Plant in autumn for reliable bulbs. Spring planting is always riskier.
My garlic cloves are very small – what went wrong?
One cause for small cloves is that you planted your garlic in the spring. The season is shorter compared to autumn planting, and therefore, the cloves will be smaller.
Check your soil’s nutrients and adjust them accordingly. Although garlic doesn’t need much, insufficient nutrients result in small bulbs.
Another reason is spacing. It’s tempting to set the cloves closely together, but they need at least 10 cm (4 inches), better yet 15 cm (6 inches) apart from each other to form good bulbs.
Make sure you water your garlic adequately during its growing season, that is, from late spring onward.
If you’ve got hardneck varieties, remove the scapes. Otherwise, the plant will put all its energy into flower-making instead of bulbing.
Don’t harvest too early, but give it time to mature.
Lastly, choose high-quality seed garlic over cheap cloves.
My recommendations:
Prepare your soil well and adjust nutrients if necessary.
Plant your garlic in autumn and space the cloves adequately.
Remove the scapes from hardneck varieties and
water your garlic consistently.
Is it too late to plant garlic now?
That depends on the current month:
October-early November: Perfect timing! This is prime garlic planting season.
Late November-December: Still possible in mild winter areas if the soil isn’t frozen. Get the garlic in the ground ASAP.
January: It’s risky. I’d only attempt planting garlic now in very mild areas. The bulbs will be small, though.
February-March: When you’ve missed autumn planting, switch to spring planting. Plant your garlic cloves as early as the soil is workable.
April-September: Now it’s too late for spring planting. Use this time to prepare your bed and source quality seed garlic for October planting.
My recommendation: Mark your calendar now for October and don’t miss the window!
How much garlic will I harvest from one clove?
One planted clove will result in one full bulb. Each bulb contains between 5 to 12 cloves, depending on the variety. So, one clove becomes 5 – 12 cloves at harvest.
Hardnecks typically produce larger but fewer cloves, usually around 6 – 8 large cloves.
Sofneck varieties have smaller but more cloves, usually around 10 – 10 small cloves per bulb.
On average, you can calculate your harvest by multiplying the number of cloves you planted by 6 – 10.
My garlic sprouted over winter – is that okay?
Yes, that’s completely normal for autumn-planted garlic!
2 – 4 weeks after planting in autumn, the cloves sprout and the green shoots reach a height of 5 – 10 cm (2 – 4 inches) before winter. In winter, growth stops or slows down considerably, only to restart vigorously again in spring.
So, if your garlic sprouted over winter, this is exactly what should happen!
Why you should grow garlic
Growing garlic is almost a no-brainer. Stick the cloves in autumn in the soil, forget about them during the winter, watch them joyfully growing in spring and harvest them in summer. Garlic is genuinely one of the easiest crops to grow, and even beginners get great results!
The key factors to a successful and massive garlic harvest are making sure that the soil has good drainage and planting the cloves in autumn. Oh yes, and be patient. That’s usually the hardest part.
The satisfaction of harvesting your own bulbs is enormously motivating. So come and join the garlic-planting club! With this guide, you have everything you need to know about it in a nutshell. A bountiful harvest is almost inevitable – as are the envious stares of your neighbours.
Tomatoes are one of the most popular vegetables in the whole wide world, not only among gourmets but also among us gardeners. And there are so many varieties out there: from teeny-tiny, pinhead-sized beads to enormous, almost melon-like specimens, in colours ranging from the classic red to orange, yellow, white, green and even black. There’s a tomato for everyone’s heart. There are so many varieties, I’d either need a much larger garden or at least three lives to try them all. When I’ve found a variety I love, however, I want to grow it every year. But why invest in seeds for tomatoes you’ve already successfully cultivated, when you can save them from your own fruits? It’s easier than you think, and it’s so satisfying to be part of the cycle of seed, becoming fruit, becoming seed again. I’ll show you which tomatoes you can harvest seeds from, what to look out for and how to make sure that they germinate well next season.
Why save tomato seeds?
Apart from the magic and fun, there are many more reasons to save your tomato seeds:
Cost
One seed package with 6 – 8 tomato seeds costs around 3 €. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not known for cultivating only one variety. More like 10 – 15. That would be 30 – 45 € just for tomato seeds every single year! Ehm…. no. Especially not, when I can get hundreds of seeds for free.
Adaptation
Plants adapt to their growing conditions. So, no matter what your garden’s conditions are, your tomatoes will, within one life cycle (!), adapt to them. Seeds from the plants in our garden, therefore, are better adjusted to your microclimate than any store-bought seeds ever will be.
Moreover, plants become increasingly resilient over generations. When you save seeds from your healthy tomato plants, you contribute to their future health.
Variety Preservation
Many heirloom tomatoes are bordering on extinction, and there are also quite a few rare or hard-to-find varieties. By saving their seeds, you take an active part in preserving those precious tomatoes and making sure that generations to come will still be able to cultivate and taste them.
Understanding Tomato Varieties for Seed Saving
Now, do we just go out and save tomato seeds? Not quite! First, you must understand that not all tomato varieties can be propagated by saving their seeds.
Open-pollinated tomatoes
Tomato blossoms have male and female parts. The male parts (anthers) contain the pollen, while the female parts (pistils) receive it and produce fruits and with them seeds. That way, tomatoes can be self-pollinating, seeing that male and female parts are so closely together, but they often get help in pollination from insects.
“Open-pollinated” means that those tomatoes are pollinated naturally, either by self-pollination or with the help of insects.
The cool thing about that is that open-pollinated tomatoes always produce the same kind of tomato (e.g. an ‘Indigo Rose’ plant produces only ‘Indigo Rose’ tomatoes) and all seeds harvested from an open-pollinated tomato will produce exactly the same variety next season. They breed “true to type”.
Which is great for us seed-collectors as we only have to, well, collect their seeds to make sure we can cultivate the same variety next year.
Heirloom tomatoes
We speak of heirloom tomatoes when the variety has been cultivated for at least 50 years or was commercially introduced before 1940.
All heirloom tomatoes are open-pollinated, but not all open-pollinated tomatoes are heirlooms.
Hybrid tomatoes
Hybrid tomatoes are a cross between different varieties. They have been created to enhance characteristics we want, like flavour, size, pest and disease resistance, colour and longevity. Unlike open-pollinated tomatoes, hybrids don’t produce seeds true to type; instead, they revert to their parents’ genes, either recreating one of them or creating a tomato with different characteristics. Hybrid tomatoes, therefore, are not suitable for seed-saving.
When you look at your seed package and F1 is printed behind the name, it’s a hybrid.
Open-pollinated vs cross-pollinated
Cross-pollination means that pollen from one variety has pollinated the blossom of another variety. It doesn’t alter the fruits, but the seeds are no longer true to type. In fact, cross-pollination creates hybrids and, as we’ve learned, hybrids are not suitable for seed-harvesting.
To avoid cross-pollination in our gardens, we should plant different varieties at a distance of about 3 m (10 feet) from each other. Another good method for guaranteeing that our varieties stay true type is to cover them with a finely-meshed cloth once they show buds. When the buds have opened, carefully shake the plant so that the pollen can reach its destination.
A good method to help pollination is to use an old electric toothbrush that you brush across the blossoms. The vibration of the toothbrush loosens the pollen from one blossom and lets it fall readily onto the next one, thus fertilising it.
When tomatoes form, you can remove the cloth.
The crucial step: Fermentation
Saving tomato seeds is easy, but it comes with a little catch: to make sure that the seeds germinate well next year and do not carry any diseases, we must ferment them.
Tomato seeds are enclosed in gel casings. These casings contain growth inhibitors that keep the seeds from starting to sprout inside the tomato. Fermentation breaks up the gel casings and removes the growth inhibitor. If we used the seeds without fermenting them, the gel casings and with them the growth inhibitors would still be intact and prevent most of the seeds from growing.
In our garden, when tomatoes fall to the ground, they decay and by that break up the gel casings. Fermentation copies that process.
By fermenting the seeds, we also make sure to kill any seed-borne pathogens and only cultivate inherently healthy plants.
How to save tomato seeds
Step 1: Choose the right fruits
Choose tomatoes that are ripe and healthy and show all the signs you like in a variety, that is, the appropriate (or even larger) size and flavour.
You can use overripe tomatoes, but make sure they aren’t damaged.
Always use tomatoes from more than one plant to maintain the genetic diversity. Also, if one tomato plant turns out to have a disease, e.g. the blight, you’ll still have healthy seeds from another plant.
It’s best to use tomatoes from mid to late season as they have adapted better to your specific garden conditions and climate.
Step 2: Get the seeds
Wash them and cut them open around the middle.
With a finger or a spoon, scrape out the seeds and the jelly they’re in into a jar. Use the now seedless tomatoes for a salad or pasta sauce, or whatever you like to do with them.
Step 3: Water
Add water to the jar so that the seeds and the pulp can be stirred. I usually add about two fingers of water. Cover the mixture with a cloth; it needs air circulation.
Step 4: Labelling
Never trust your memory, but label the jar with the tomato variety you’ve got in there. You’ll thank yourself later.
Step 5: Fermentation
Put the jar in a warm place. I usually put it on the windowsill, but you should make sure that the temperature doesn’t change too much. Avoid any drafts. Temperatures between 20 and 25 °C (70 – 80 °F) are ideal for fermentation. If it’s colder, fermentation will still work, but it’ll take longer.
Stir your seeds every day. Usually after 3 – 5 days (depending on the temperature), they’ll sink to the ground. A little time later, an opaque film will form on the surface and – I’m sorry to say – the mixture will start to stink abominably. Take that into consideration when looking for a fermentation place. The kitchen may not be the best option.
The good news is: all these signs show that fermentation has started!
Step 6: Rinse
The good news is that once fermentation has started, you can remove the seeds from the jars. Pour them into a sieve and rinse them thoroughly. Take this process seriously. Rinsing not only removes the pulp and the now dissolved gel casings around the seeds, but it also stops the fermentation process.
Put the seeds back in the jar and fill it with water. Any seeds that float on the surface after this final rinse are bad and can be discarded.
Step 7: Dry the seeds
Rinse the rest again and put them on a tissue paper to dry. I either use the scrap of a kitchen towel or half a paper tissue, but you can also use waxed paper, parchment paper, coffee filters or a mesh screen over a plate. Remember to label whatever your seeds dry on. Stir the seeds so that they don’t clump.
Put the seeds in a warm place, away from direct sunlight. A good place in my house is the top of the fridge. Make sure temperatures are not too high, or else the seeds will sprout.
After one to two weeks, depending on your drying medium, the seeds will have dried.
Step 8: Storage
To check if your seeds are completely dry, try to break them. A dry seed breaks in half with a snap, while a still moist seed will bend or rip. Once the seeds are completely dry, you can store them in paper envelopes, brown glass jars or plastic bags. Make sure the seeds are really 100 % dry, especially when stored in plastic or glass containers. Otherwise, the moisture will make them mould and rot.
Remember to label the seed packages with the variety and harvest date.
Store the seeds in a cool, dry place. They are usually good for 4 – 6 years.
Final thoughts
As you can see, saving tomato seeds is easier than it sounds, and it’s so rewarding. One year from now, you’ll be making a tomato salad from fruits that only exist because of your seed-saving efforts. And imagine the satisfaction of telling your friends and family that the tomato salad they’re eating right now is not only from your garden but also grown from seeds you saved yourself! Admiring looks included.
Start now, choose some tomatoes you like, even if it’s only one variety, and save their seeds. You’ll be proud of yourself!
Wanna learn more about tomatoes? This article is for you then:
June is a time for harvesting in the vegetable garden. But if you think the time of sowing and planting is over: think again! June offers us gardeners the perfect opportunity to maximize our growing season with strategic plantings. If you want to harvest fresh produce all year round, this month presents ideal conditions for both cool-season succession plantings and warm-season varieties that thrive in the longer, sunnier days ahead. The keyword here is succession planting. After all, we don’t want to have an overwhelming harvest once and afterwards only empty patches. Smart planning this month sets the foundation for a productive garden that bridges the gap between spring’s early greens and summer’s abundance. To get an overview, I’ve prepared a list of vegetables to sow and plant in June.
Seed-start indoors
If you’re new to seed-starting, you may want to read up and learn about all the necessary steps and equipment. Also, as it’s warm enough now and I like to have my windowsills back to normal, I usually seed-start now in the greenhouse. Let’s have a look at what can be sown indoors in June:
Brassicas
I know it’s just the middle of the year, but nevertheless we must plan our winter harvest now. Late brassicas should be sowed indoors now so that they are ready to plant out when the first spring vegetables like spinach, peas or lettuce have been harvested and you have again some space in your beds.
Members of the brassica family that you can seed-start indoors in June are
Kale, palm kale and black cabbage (which is also a variety of kale)
Savoy cabbage
White and red cabbage (late varieties for making sauerkraut and storing)
Kohlrabi
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Summer squash
It’s a good idea to seed-start a second batch of zucchini now and transplant them outside when the first batch gets slow and/or becomes infected with diseases, especially mildew. This is often the case during dry periods and then it’s great to have some zucchinis ready to plant ouside.
Lettuce
It’s good to seed-start lettuce indoors every four weeks. That way, we have a continuous supply of plants and will never run out of fresh lettuce during the growing season. Seeing that temperatures increase, however, we want to choose varieties that like warmer weather, like, for example, iceberg and oak leaf lettuce.
Sowing out lettuce every 3 – 4 weeks is not only a good method for a constant harvest but also makes sure that the beds are always covered.
Vegetables we can sow directly outdoors in June
Carrots
Now we can sow carrots for storing. Make sure you choose later varieties that are robust against low temperatures. Carrot seeds dry out quickly so
Parsnips
Parsnips are related to carrots and they can also be sowed directly into the patches now for a late autumn harvest and for storage.
Beans
Both, bush and runner beans, can still be sowed in June, either as a gap filler when some other vegetables are harvested or between heavy feeders like cabbages, cucumbers or tomatoes.
Spinach, Swiss chard
Both vegetables are wonderful gap fillers that grow fast and thus cover the ground. Additionally, they taste wonderfully and – mostly in case of the Swiss chard – are a very pretty sight.
Kohlrabi
You can either seed-start Kohlrabi now and plant them out later. Or, if you’ve got room now, sow them directly into the bed.
Lettuce
To fill your salad bowl regularly, you must continually sow and plant out lettuce. Now, we choose summer-proof varieties that are bolt-resistant.
Rocket salad
Sow it, watch it grow quickly, harvest the leaves and let it bloom. That way, it will spread itself across your garden.
Radishes
If you have radish varieties that are bolt-resistant, you can sow them out how. The early varieties, however, will not work any more as they’ll only produce flowers and seeds now.
Radishes need only a few days to germinate and then not only show us the row but are a yummy vegetable for salads or as a ferment.
Beetroot
In spring, we sowed only a few beetroots for immediate consumption but now we can throw out handfuls of beetroot seeds for a large harvest in autumn. Beetroots can easily be preserved by freezing, pickling or fermenting.
Planting outdoors
No matter if you’ve seed-started vegetables in your living room or in the greenhouse, the seedlings must be hardened off before they can be transplanted outdoors. Start by putting your plants outside for 2 – 3 hours at first and prolong that time over a week. That way, you make sure that your veggies are healthy and sturdy enough for outdoor conditions.
Brassicas
All the cabbage plants we seed-started earlier that year, are now ready to get outside. All brassica seedlings we have started indoors in April, like kohlrabi, Savoy cabbage, broccoli, Brussel’s sprout and cauliflower, as well as white and red cabbage, can be planted outdoors in June. eave plenty of space between the seedlings so that you can plant celery in between later. Cabbage and celery are great companions in the patch and repel each other’s pests.
As in the weeks before, our monthly batch of lettuce wants to be planted outside.
Leek
Winter leek can be planted outside in June. A great place would be next to the carrots you can now sow directly into the patch. Leek and carrot are a great combination as they keep each other’s pests away. Alternate leek and carrot rows to get the best protection.
Fruit vegetables
If you still have pumpkin seedlings, transplant them out now. Also, if you have seed-started a second batch of cucumbers, peppers/chilies, zucchini and eggplants, transplant them now in June to fill the gap if any of the plants you’ve already in the garden gets weak or infected by diseases.
When you prune tomatoes now, don’t throw away the side shoots but put them in a glass with water. They’ll build new roots and you get additional tomato plants that you can transplant now!
General garden tasks in June
Mulch all plants larger than 10 cm / 4 inches. Mulching means you cover the soil with organic material like grass clippings, leaves, straw or wood chips. By mulching, you make sure that less water evaporates. Additionally, mulch suppresses weeds and thus your “weeding time” will be reduced considerably 🙂
Harvest whatever is ready in your garden. June is also the perfect time to harvest and dry herbs for later use.
Fertilise strong uptakers like cabbage plants, tomatoes, pumpkins and zucchini that were planted in May. Ideally, you have given them basic fertilisation when you planted them. Now it’s time for maintenance fertilisation. A great homemade fertiliser with plenty of nitrogen for hungry veggies is nettle manure. It’s free and easy to make. You’ll find a detailed description on how to make nettle manure here.
Still not enough garden talk? Then these posts may interest you:
The promises of May are kept in June! Forgotten is the doom of night frosts; now, everything is growing wild, and we can already harvest lots of veggies, herbs, and fruits. Summer solstice is around the corner, and the days are long, hot and busy. Let’s see what garden tasks await us in June.
#1 Harvest and preserve
Many veggies that we sowed and planted earlier that year can now be harvested in June. Apart from lettuce, which we have already been harvesting for weeks, we can now yield sweet peas, broad beans, kohlrabi and our second batch of spinach and Swiss chard.
Calendula is now in full bloom, and you can pluck the flowers and dry their petals. Don’t know what you can use them for? Here are some ideas.
The strawberries are finally ripe (honestly, what is this about strawberries? I can never get enough of them!) and we’ll get busy cooking strawberry jam, the first jam of the season. If you happen to have elder bushes in the vicinity, you can harvest the flowers now and make syrup from them. It’s not only a tasty ingredient for drinks or in yoghurt, but can also be mixed with strawberries to make an interestingly flavoured jam. For more ideas on strawberry jam with a twist, read on here.
#2 Watering
Watering is one of the most important garden tasks in June. So far, this year has been bone dry here in Southern Germany. We had almost no rain in spring and only occasional rainfall in May, just enough to keep the plants alive. While I’m not a great fan of watering, it’s essential to keep the soil moist, especially when we have freshly sown or transplanted. The seeds need water to germinate, and for that reason, we mustn’t let the soil dry out. Mulching (see next step) and hoeing are good additional methods to ensure that the soil stays moist.
#3 Mulching
When your plants are about 10 – 15 cm (4 – 6 inches) high, add mulch to your patches. Either use (dry!) grass clippings, (old) hay, straw or leaves. Also, good mulch material is wood chips that have the additional advantage of being avoided by snails and slugs.
#4 Sowing and planting
Wherever we harvest, we should sow or plant afterwards so that there are no gaps in the patches. That way, we cannot only harvest continually but also keep the soil covered. This will suppress weeds and keep the soil moist. This article summarises all the veggies we can either seed-start, sow directly or plant into our patches in June.
#5 Monitoring for pests and diseases
One of the greatest garden “tasks” in June is taking a daily stroll through the garden. First of all, because it’s good for the soul. Is there anything more satisfying than witnessing how everything we planned and prepared earlier that year comes to life and works out? I can’t think of one.
While we are there to enjoy our bountiful garden, however, we should also watch out for pests and diseases like a hawk. We haven’t invested all that time and energy to see our babies be either eaten off overnight or die from some disease. The earlier we detect possible harm, the better the chances of protection.
Snails and slugs, for example, are some dreaded pests, especially when it’s moist or wet, but even during dry spells, we should check for them under the mulch. A good way to keep those pests off our seedlings is to put snail collars around them, which they can’t overcome. Or you get out in the wee hours of the morning or the evening with a bucket and collect them. Choose your way, but I prefer the collars.
Mulch is a good way to suppress weeds, but sometimes it’s not enough, and we have to weed regularly before dandelion, couch grass, and nettles get the upper hand. As plenty of weeds are edible, you should consider making a pesto from them (for more, see this article). From nettle, dandelions and horsetail (and some more), you can make liquid manure as a fertiliser for your plants. Read here how to make nettle manure.
#7 Fertilising
To help our plants thrive, we need to feed them. Depending on what parts oft he plants we want to harvest, we have to use different fertilisers: brassicas, for example, where we harvest the leaves, need mostly nitrogen to build large heads. Tomatoes and cucumbers, on the other hand, where we harvest the fruits from, need more phosphorus and potassium to build many large fruits.
Fertilise your heavy-feeders every 3- 4 weeks and the medium-feeders every 4 – 6 weeks.
#8 Fertilise and mulch berry shrubs
Your berry shrubs, like raspberries, gooseberries, currants, blackberries, and so on, need food as well. So, another garden task you should do in June is to fertilise your berry shrubs and fruit trees. They’ll profit as well from a healthy dose of that liquid manure from stinging nettles I mentioned above. Additionally, you should cover the soil under the bushes and shrubs now with mulch.
#9 Pruning tomatoes
Every time we turn our backs on our gardens, even if it’s only for a second, our tomatoes seem to shoot out new suckers from their leaf axils. If you want to induce the plant to produce many fruits instead of leaves, you must remove these suckers before they get too large. Over here, you’ll find a detailed guide on how to grow tomatoes.
You can put the pruned suckers into water and they soon will form roots. If you want to and have some room left, you can transplant these new tomato plants in a few weeks into the patch.
#10 Gaining seeds
If you still have some vegetables from last year in your garden, they’ll be blooming by now, which attracts beneficial insects. In a few weeks, these blooms will turn into seeds that we can harvest and store for the next gardening season. The plants from those seeds are usually more robust and better adapted to your (micro)climate. Best of all: gaining our own seeds helps us save heirloom varieties and makes us (at least partly) independent from large seed companies.
June is a bit like a summer camp – everything’s growing, thriving, and probably getting a little wild when you’re not looking. Between watering, weeding, and wondering why your tomatoes are taking their sweet time, remember that gardening is part science, part art, and part wishful thinking. Your plants don’t need perfection; they need care, consistency, and maybe the occasional pep talk. So grab your watering can, embrace the dirt under your fingernails, and enjoy watching your little green kingdom flourish. After all, every master gardener started with one slightly wonky seedling!
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Aphids are a common pest and make life hard for gardeners. Within a very short time, these yellow, green, red or black insects can grow into gigantic hordes and damage the leaves and young shoots of many plants with their piercing-sucking mouth parts. Additionally, aphids often transmit dangerous pathogens, especially viruses. However, it’s not necessary to fight aphids with chemicals. There are much cheaper and – what’s even more important – natural household remedies to get rid of aphids. Let’s have a look!
Preventing aphids
The right place and nutrients
As so often, it’s best to take every measure to keep pests like aphids away from your plants. One way to do that is not to plant too many of the same plants together. In an ornamental garden, this could mean combining roses with different perennials; in the vegetable garden, you should apply the system of companion plants. That way, we can already combine plants that help each other.
Healthy plants that get enough nutrients, water and light are generally less prone to pests than over-fertilised or weak plants. Avoid over-fertilising with nitrogen, because aphids like the nourishing plant sap.
Attract natural enemies
A further step to prevent aphids is to attract their natural enemies like ladybugs, lacewings, ichneumon flies, hoverflies and other insects. Offer them enough nesting opportunities, for example deadwood hedges, lacewing boxes and insect hotels. When aphid hunters feel comfortable in your garden, the aphids will decrease noticeably in late spring or early summer. The reason is that with an increased food supply, the beneficial insects proliferate as well. In summer, we usually have a good balance.
Strengthen your plants
Seeing as pests first infest weak and unhealthy plants, it’s a good idea to strengthen them. Here, too, we have tried-and-tested household remedies for strengthening:
Horsetail manure
To make horsetail manure, you need 1 kg fresh or 200 g dry field horsetail. Soak it in 10 litres of cold water for 24 hours and filter it. Dilute 2 litres of the liquid manure with 10 litres of water and water or spray the plants every week.
Skimmed milk and whey
To prevent aphids from infesting your tomato plants, mix one litre of skimmed milk or whey with 4 litres of water and spray the concoction once a week on your plants. If the aphids have already infested your tomatoes, however, this won’t help.
Diluted with water is a strengthening tonic for young and weak plants and helps prevent aphids.
Wormwood manure
Wormwood manure (not to be confused with wormwood tea) does not repel pests but distracts them with its strong and pungent smell. It’s made in the same way as nettle manure.
Vinegar
Vinegar is also a preventive means against aphids, as they shy away from acid. You must be careful, however, and only use vinegar dilutedly. Otherwise, you risk damaging your plants with too high acidity.
How to get rid of aphids with household remedies
One day, everything’s fine in your garden, and the next day, all your plants have aphids! At least, it often seems as dramatic as that because aphids proliferate very fast and can truly infest a garden within a week.
So, what to do now? Here are some tried-and-tested household remedies to get rid of aphids in a natural way.
Water
Yep, that’s right, just plain old water. Often, a strong jet of water is enough to catapult the aphids into nirvana. Just shoot them off the plant. This works for house plants, as well. Put them into the shower or bathtub and rinse the aphids off.
Soft soap or dish soap solution
The most commonly known household remedy against aphids is soft soap. This soap is made with potash instead of sodium hydroxide and has no surplus of fat. An alternative to soft soap is dish soap, although it contains fragrances and colourings.
Shower gel and other body care products on the basis of soap are not suitable. They contain environmentally dangerous substances and can damage your plants.
To make an effective household remedy against aphids, dissolve 50 g of soft soap or dish soap in one litre of warm water. Let the solution cool down and fill it into a spray bottle. Spray the infested plants.
Pro tip: In case of a heavy infestation with aphids, stir 2 teaspoons of alcohol or spirit to the soft soap solution to enhance its power.
Nettle brew
A brew (not manure) from stinging nettles is also a successful household remedy to get rid of aphids. To make an extract, put 100 – 200 g of fresh stinging nettles into one litre of water and let them steep for two days. You can use the brew undiluted against aphids, also on houseplants.
Make sure to filter the brew after two days and dispose of the nettles. Otherwise, the liquid will ferment and become nettle manure, which mustn’t be used undiluted on any plants.
Oregano
You may know oregano in the kitchen, but this herb is also suitable against aphids. To make a spray solution, take 100 g fresh or 10 g dry oregano and add one litre of boiling water. Let it steep for 15 – 20 minutes and filter it. Dilute the brew at a ratio of 3:1 with water and spray it on the aphid-infested plants.
Tansy brew
Soak 500 g fresh or 30 g dried tansy in 10 litres of water for 24 hours. Filter the brew and dilute it with 20 litres of water. Fill the solution in a spray bottle and spray it on the diseased plant.
Wormwood tea
Besides aphids, wormwood tea (not wormwood manure, see above) also helps against other sucking and eating pests. Brew 100 g fresh or 10 g dry wormwood leaves (Artemisia absinthum) with one litre of water and let it steep for 24 hours. Filter the tea and use it undilutedly against aphids.
Bracken brew
Mix one kilogram of bracken with 10 litres of water. The brew can be used undilutedly against aphids and is especially suitable for houseplants. Bracken contains lots of potassium, and the brew strengthens the plant like a fertiliser.
Onion and garlic „tea“ as a household remedy against aphids
Onions and garlic can help against many pests. Make a tea from 40 g chopped onions or garlic and 5 litres of boiling water. Let the tea steep for at least three hours (closed with a lid, it stinks!) and filter it afterwards. Spray your plants with this undiluted tea every 8 – 10 days against aphids and preventively against fungal diseases.
Rhubarb leaf brew
If your beans are infested with black bean aphids (Aphis fabae), a brew from rhubarb leaves is a good household remedy. Boil 500 g of leaves for half an hour in 3 litres of water, filter the brew and spray your plants with the cooled liquid once a week.
Black tea
Black tea is also a good household remedy against aphids. Take two teabags of black tea and pour one litre of boiling water over them. Let it steep for at least 15 minutes. Fill the cooled tea in a spray bottle and spray your plants from all directions.
Conclusion
Aphids are a common pest, and to a certain extent we have to live with them. In a natural garden, where their natural enemies feel comfortable, we usually get a good balance.
In case of a large infestation, however, we should not use chemicals to fight them as these would also harm beneficial insects. Instead, there are so many cheap or even free household remedies that really help get rid of aphids in a natural way. The ecosystem and environment will thank you, and you can eat your vegetables with an easy conscience.
Liquid manure made from stinging nettles is a must-have in every vegetable garden as you can use it for different purposes: first and foremost as a natural fertiliser for your vegetables, as a tonic to strengthen your plants and as a pesticide to get rid of damaging pests. So let’s not waste any more time, I‘ll show you how to make nettle manure!
Quick overview
7 Steps to making nettle manure
Step 1: Harvest 1 kg of stinging nettles and chop them roughly. ⇒ Best to wear gloves
Step 2: Put the nettles in a container ⇒ made of wood or plastic. Don’t use a metal container!
Step 3: Fill up with 10 litres of water ⇒ Rainwater is best
Step 4: Add a handful of rock flour ⇒ It binds the odour
Step 5: Stir it all well and cover the container loosely ⇒ Nettle manure needs oxygen
Step 6: Stir daily ⇒ The nettle manure is ready to use when no more bubbles appear.
Step 7: Dilute nettle manure ⇒ Ratio 1:20
How to make nettle manure
Grab your garden gloves, shears and a basket or bucket and get out into nature.
Look for stinging nettles that don’t grow near a street or at the edge of a field so that we can be sure our soon-to-be fertiliser is free from harmful substances.
Cut off about 1 kg of stinging nettles and take them home. If you like, you can chop them into pieces of 2 – 3 cm (about 1 inch). That way, you can also fill the nettle residues into your watering can and water them out with the manure. I don’t cut the nettles, but filter the manure and use the remaining nettle parts selectively for certain plants.
Put the nettles into a container that’s not made of metal. That’s important because during the fermentation process, the manure would react with metal, causing undesired chemical processes.
Now, fill in about 10 litres of water. Rainwater is best as it’s soft and doesn’t cost a thing, but you can also use tap water.
It lies in the nature of manure to stink. To keep the smell at least a bit under control, you can add one to two handfuls of rock flour or compost. It helps bind the odour and additionally enriches the manure.
Now stir the liquid thoroughly with a stick and cover the container loosely so that the air can circulate and provide our manure-to-be with oxygen for the fermentation process. Besides, the resulting gases can’t build up pressure.
Stir your manure every day until no more bubbles appear. Now your homemade fertiliser is ready!
How to use nettle manure
Mature nettle manure is a concentrate and would be too harsh for your plants. That’s why you must dilute it 1:20, that means one part nettle manure and 20 parts water. For example: put 0.5 litres of nettle manure in your watering can and fill up with 10 litres of water. Now, water the soil around your vegetables with it.
Avoid watering the stems or leaves with nettle manure. If you get residues of the fermented nettles on the ground, that’s okay. They’ll rot and provide nourishment for the soil organisms.
Fertilise plants with high nutrient uptake, like tomatoes or pumpkins, every three to four weeks, plants with low nutrient uptake only to strengthen them and if they are infected with pests. It’s best to produce nettle manure continually so that you can use it throughout the growing season.
Stored in a cool and dark place and covered with a lid, nettle manure has quite a long shelf life. Over time, however, nutrients decline, and the manure loses its power. In autumn, therefore, when you don’t have to fertilise anymore, pour the residual nettle manure on your compost heap or dilutedly on harvested patches. Next year, you can make nettle manure afresh.
The different uses of nettle manure
Fertiliser
Nettle manure is a wonderful fertiliser, containing everything your plants need. The nutrients are instantly available, and that’s why your plants will thrive when you fertilise regularly with nettle manure.
Before you plant your seedlings out into the open, dip their root bales in three to four days old (that is: relatively fresh) nettle manure. That strengthens the roots and defences and facilitates taking root.
If your vegetables are a bit weak and don’t grow properly, nettle manure can help. Water your plants every one to two weeks with a dilution of 1:20, and they’ll thrive in no time!
Strengthening tonic
Your plants tolerate capricious weather conditions like heavy rains or lasting drought better when you feed them with some nettle manure.
Or if your veggies have been damaged by hail, nettle manure can help them to recover and grow healthily again
Protection
If your plants are infected with pests, you can help them with nettle manure:
Take nettle manure that’s about 4 – 7 days old and still bubbles powerfully and foams when stirred, and dilute it at a ratio of 1:50. Spray that mixture on a cloudy day or in the evenings on the leaves of your infected plants. That’ll repel aphids and other pests.
If time is of the essence because there are already too many pests, you can also make nettle extract:
Chop up 100 g of stinging nettles and fill them up with 1 litre of water. Let the concoction sit for 24 hours, and use it without diluting.
Ingredients of nettle manure
Due to its wonderful ingredients, nettle manure can be used versatilely. It contains nitrogen and potassium, vitamins and growth-inducing enzymes that push your veggies!
Another substance in nettle manure is silicic acid, which makes your plants strong and resistant. That way, your vegetables can fight off pests and diseases better or cope with damage from hail or downpours.
Making nettle manure is a great way to produce a wonderful energiser for your plants that fertilises and strengthens them at the same time. Nettle manure is easy to make, fast and has so many advantages. Make it continually throughout the summer, and you’ll have a wonderful plant food. So, get out into nature, harvest stinging nettles and make your own nettle manure!
Wanna read more about how to grow vegetables successfully?
