How to Grow Garlic in Containers

By
Kerry Michaels
Kerry Michaels

Kerry Michaels is a container gardening expert with over 20 years of experience maintaining container gardens in Maine. She specializes in writing and capturing photography for gardening and landscape design for print and broadcast media, including the Discovery Channel, Small Gardens, and Disney, among others.

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Updated on 11/17/22
Reviewed by
Kathleen Miller
Kathleen Miller
Reviewed by Kathleen Miller
Kathleen Miller is a highly-regarded Master Gardener and Horticulturist who shares her knowledge of sustainable living, organic gardening, farming, and landscape design. She founded Gaia's Farm and Gardens, a working sustainable permaculture farm, and writes for Gaia Grows, a local newspaper column. She has over 30 years of experience in gardening and sustainable farming.
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Garlic plants growing in long orange container with soil

The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

Project Overview
  • Working Time: 30 mins - 1 hr
  • Total Time: 25 wks, 5 days - 38 wks, 4 days
  • Skill Level: Kid-friendly
  • Estimated Cost: $5-10

Growing garlic in containers is a bit of a challenge because the plant has a long growing season and needs regular watering. That said, it can be well worth the effort, you can grow hard-to-find varieties, and you can even grow them inside. And as with many freshly picked fruits, vegetables, and herbs, the taste will make you an instant homegrown garlic fanatic. To top it off, if you grow hardneck garlic, you also can eat the scapes. The hardneck varieties grow best in cold climates while softneck garlic prefers a mild climate.

Tip

Before you choose which kind of garlic to grow, it helps to be familiar with overall distinctions between hardneck and softneck varieties. Hardneck garlic sends out flower stalks called scapes, which are edible—and delicious—while softneck garlic does not. It also creates bulbs filled with fewer, but larger, bulbs than softneck garlic.

What makes growing garlic in a pot difficult is you generally plant it in the fall and don't harvest until the middle of the summer. Keeping the garlic well watered over all that time can become tedious. To help with this problem, use a large pot. The more soil there is, the more moisture it will retain.

How to Grow Garlic

When to Grow Garlic in Containers

In general, you should plant garlic in containers around the same time as you would plant it in the ground: in the fall after the first frost when the soil has cooled but before anything freezes. In most places, you can plant garlic anytime from September until November. It can take anywhere from six to nine months after planting for harvesting.

When you are ready to plant, choose your garlic bulbs from a local farmer's market or nursery, or order them online. Garlic purchased from the grocery store might grow in a container for you, but supermarket garlic sometimes has been treated to prevent sprouting, so if you go this route, choose an organic option.

What You'll Need

Equipment / Tools

  • Garden trowel
  • Watering can

Materials

  • Large pot with good drainage
  • High-quality potting mix
  • Garlic cloves that are firm, fat, and healthy
  • Slow-release fertilizer (if needed)

Instructions

Materials and tools to plant garlic in containers

The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

  1. Ready the Container

    Fill your container with potting mix till it is about 3 inches from the top. If your potting mix doesn't already include it, mix in a slow-release fertilizer.

    Long orange plant container filled with potting mix

    The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

  2. Prepare the Garlic Cloves

    Take your head of garlic and gently separate the cloves. You can leave the papery outer wrappings on each individual clove.

    Garlic cloves separated from papery outer wrapping

    The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

  3. Plant the Cloves

    Place the cloves with their pointy end up in the soil. You'll want them at least 3 inches apart.

    Garlic cloves planted in potting mix closeup

    The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

  4. Cover the Cloves

    Shovel soil onto the cloves. If you live in a warm climate, about an inch of soil is fine. But in colder areas, cover the cloves with around 2 inches of soil.

    Pat the soil gently to firm it up on top of the garlic cloves.

    Garlic cloves covered with potting mix in container

    The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

  5. Find a Good Location for the Pot

    Position the container somewhere that gets at least six hours of direct sunlight on most days, and keep the soil moist but not soggy.

    Container with planted garlic cloves placed in sunlight

    The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

  6. Fertilize

    Once the garlic sprouts in the spring, fertilize it every few weeks and continue to maintain even moisture in the soil.

    Garlic sprouts in container with fertilizer in soil closeup

    The Spruce / Jayme Burrows

When to Harvest Garlic Scapes

Garlic scapes are the long, winding, blue-green shoots that hardneck garlic varieties put out in the spring. Scapes have a fresh, mild garlic taste. They can be turned into pesto or used to flavor mashed potatoes, salads, roasted vegetables, and more.

Harvest scapes when they are young and tender. Once they have curled around in a circle, they are ready for picking. Picking the scapes not only is good for cooking, but it will also help your garlic grow larger and healthier because it will send more energy toward the bulb rather than the flower stalk.

When to Harvest Garlic

When to harvest garlic is an inexact science. You'll want to harvest when the bulbs are mature and before they start to split apart and rot.

The rule of thumb is to harvest when the leaves begin to turn yellow. But you still might have to dig up a clove to see whether it is time to harvest. Don't pull the garlic out by the stem; dig into the soil, being careful not to damage the bulb.

Gently shake and brush off the dirt from the bulb. Leaving the leaves on, bundle your garlic loosely, and hang or spread out the garlic heads to cure. You must cure your garlic in a well-ventilated, warm area out of the direct sun. It will take two to four weeks for the neck to get dry and the skin to become papery. At this point, cut off the tops and roots. Once cured, store your garlic in a cool, dry place.

Tip

If you harvest hardneck garlic, it will keep for four to six months before shriveling and becoming unusable. Softneck garlic, on the other hand, can last for up to 12 months.

Article Sources
The Spruce uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

  1. Garlic Production for the Gardener. University of Georgia Extension