Guv's Gardens
Photo: Ivar Leidus, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Sun
- Full sun.
- Soil
- Well-drained, high in organic matter and moisture-retentive.
- Soil pH
- 6.0-7.0 ideal (tolerates about 5.5-8.0).
- Water
- Water regularly while growing; avoid waterlogging.
- Hardiness
- All Australian climates with the right type: hardneck for cool and cold areas, softneck for temperate and warmer areas.
- Height and spread
- About 30-60 cm.
Guv's tipPlant garlic cloves from disease-free bulbs, not supermarket garlic. Autumn is the time, and harvest when the lower leaves turn yellow or brown.
Through the year
Timings are for temperate Australia. Tropical and arid gardens follow different seasons.
When to plant
Autumn (Mar-May) in most areas (Tasmania Mar-Aug).
Harvest or flowering
7-8 months after planting (late spring-summer, about Nov-Jan), when the lower leaves turn yellow or brown.
Pruning
Remove the flower stalks (scapes) of hardneck types.
Making more plants
Individual cloves from disease-free bulbs (not supermarket garlic).
Watch out for
Rust
Puccinia alliiLook for: Small orange-brown powdery pustules on leaves.
What to do: Remove affected leaves, space plants well, and rotate crops (avoid alliums in that bed for several years).
Always read and follow the label on any treatment, and check it is approved for use where you live.
Safety and spread
Pets and people: Toxic to dogs, cats and horses (n-propyl disulfide; haemolytic anaemia), according to the ASPCA and other pet-poison lists.
Weed risk: Not listed as a weed on Weeds Australia or the Queensland restricted invasive plant list. Only other Allium species, such as A. triquetrum and A. vineale, are listed weeds.
Growing somewhere else? See this plant for the UK and the USA.
The Plant Doctor and the Guv's book
Printable pest and disease charts with real photographs, and all 50 Australia plants in one book.
