Garlic has long had an association with the spooky season: The pungent bulb tends to ward off fanged members of the undead in vampire books and movies.
But October is not just a time that garlic makes its pop culture appearances, it’s also when this crop is planted in the garden in Southern California. Its cousins, onion and shallot, can also be planted in the fall.
To avoid tricks and to have the treat of a completed harvest, there are some rules experts recommend following.
Garlic
Garlic is typically planted in the fall and harvested in the early summer. There are two main types of garlic: Softneck and hardneck.
Softneck garlic tends to have a softer stalk that’s easy to braid and doesn’t typically bolt. It also has larger bulbs that contain cloves of variable size. The bulbs have a longer shelf life but are hard to peel.
Hardneck garlic has a hard stalk that can’t be braided (called a garlic scape), is more likely to bolt and has smaller bulbs but larger individual cloves. The bulbs have a shorter shelf life but are easier to peel.
Shannie McCabe, a horticultural expert, said she likes to eat the scapes as a secondary vegetable and enjoys them in a variety of ways: pickled, canned in olive oil, sauteed and ground into pesto.
“Garlic scapes have a texture similar to a crunchy green bean, and they have a mild garlicky flavor,” she said. “So they’re incredibly versatile in a gourmet sense.”
Both hardneck and softneck will grow without issue here, McCabe said.
“Typically hardneck garlic does like a colder winter, but I have heard so many times that hardneck garlic is just fine in Southern California,” she said.
San Diego Seed Company owner Brijette Peña said that while garlic can be planted starting in late October it can also be planted as late as January or February for some parts of Southern California depending on how malleable the ground is at that time. However, she notes that the later gardeners start, the smaller their bulbs will be by harvest time.
Peña said that because Southern California is warmer and has milder winters than other places, it’s a good idea to throw garlic bulbs in the fridge for 30-40 days before planting to replicate a process called vernalization.
“You trick it into thinking it’s been exposed to cold temperatures,” she said.
When it’s time to plant the garlic, bulbs should be broken into individual cloves for planting and placed in well-draining soil. Peña recommends applying fertilizer in the hole at the time of planting and continual fertilization throughout the season, as this will allow the garlic to thrive and fight off pests and diseases.
Peña said it’s important to continue watering throughout the growing season for garlic but that gardeners can stop about 4-6 weeks before harvest, as this will improve the flavor of the garlic.
Onions
Onions can also be planted beginning now and can be harvested around June. There are three main types: Long day, short day and intermediate day.
“Basically anywhere south of San Francisco, you need to plant short-day, or at the very least, intermediate-day onions,” Peña
She explained that long-day onions are accustomed to places such as Alaska, where the number of daylight hours in the summer tends to be much higher than in Southern California.
Planting a long-day onion in a place with shorter days means that it will not get the necessary amount of light to be able to form its bulb.
Like garlic, onion bulbs are best planted in well-draining soil. Peña said they can be given granular fertilizer at planting time and liquid fertilizer throughout the season thereafter.
Making sure onions are regularly irrigated is also important. Peña recommends monitoring weather patterns and watering accordingly.
“If we’re not getting seasonal rains, then we need to irrigate,” Peña said.
Shallots
Like its allium relatives, the humble shallot likes well-draining soil, regular fertilization and regular watering.
A shallot produces a much smaller bulb than an onion, but that means it also matures more quickly. It takes about 120 days to have ready shallots, Peña said.
She said shallots can be planted now through at least February, and she recommends succession planting by planting a new crop every month so that gardeners can have a steady supply of shallots throughout the season.
