How to Plant, Grow, and Care for Chesnok Red Hardneck Garlic

Native Area

Our food garlic is no longer present in wild spaces but is incredibly common in gardens and farmland. The species’ ancestors probably came from Central Asia, disseminating further across the globe with farmers or traders. 

‘Chesnok Red’ specimens come from Tbilisi, Georgia, in the Middle East. They appreciate warm summers with long days and cold winters with occasional freezes. This type excels in cold regions throughout North America, from USDA zones 4 through 9. You can grow this type above zone 8 with a little cold vernalization process in your refrigerator.

Characteristics

This hardneck defies easy categorization—its bulbs taste rich, even after cooking. It holds onto flavor well. Use it in any recipe. In gardens, this variety sprouts in springtime after a fall planting. Look for green, ridged leaves that alternate from a central stalk. They’re mild-tasting and go great in salads or stews. 

In early summer, hardneck types push out flower heads on curly stems; these are garlic scapes, and they’re delicacies worldwide! By late summer your plants will have yellowing leaves, signaling that the belowground bulbs are ready for harvesting.

Planting

There are two options for planting: bulbils or cloves. Cloves are the individual sections within a bulb, and they’re more common than bulbils in plant nurseries and catalogs. Bulbils are like mini-cloves—they sprout from scapes (flowering stalks).

A single scape produces dozens of bulbils, meaning you can let one of your plants produce a flower and exponentially increase future harvests. Bulbils take two years or longer to form full-size bulbs, while cloves only require a growing season. Decide whether you’d like an instant harvest, or whether you have time to let dozens of bulbils swell into their full size.

Bulbils

I started my garlic growing using bulbils—it took two to three years, but by the time I harvested, I went from a handful of bulbils to dozens of cloves. A single bulbil produces five or more cloves after two years, meaning you can increase your supply fivefold or more! 

Plant bulbils one and a half inches deep in early fall in your region. This allows them to overwinter, giving them their proper winter chill. Bulbils need cold vernalization to swell into full size. You can also plant them in the spring, but only after refrigerating them for a month or two. 

Bulbils grow small grass-like leaves that collect energy from sunlight. Keep your beds weed-free, as these small leaves blend in with grassy weeds. Don’t pluck your bulbils prematurely! 

Leave bulbils in the ground their first year—they’ll die back naturally in late summer. If they’re closer than three inches apart, pull them up and space them out with a three to six-inch distance. They’ll be full-size bulbs in their second or third year.

Cloves

Most growers use cloves for propagating ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic. It’s reliable, quick, and easy. Any clove, when given the right treatment, balloons into a big bulb after a growing season. This method works best if you’d like an immediate turnover from planting to harvest. Be sure to purchase ‘Chesnok Red’ hardneck garlic from a disease-free, reputable, organic source.

Keep the skin on your garlic to give it a layer of protection from any potential diseases. Plant cloves two inches deep, three to six inches apart during autumn. Ensure that the roots are facing down and the pointed part is facing up. They’ll overwinter, getting their cold vernalization from your local climate.

Do you live in an area with little winter chill? Put your garlic in the refrigerator for a month or two before planting them during fall. Garlic uses cold temperatures to put down roots and separate into multiple cloves. 

Cover with soil, and wait for them to sprout in spring. They’re ready for harvest once their tops fall over with a few yellowing leaves.

How to Grow

There’s not much to caring for this crop. Most of the work comes during planting or harvesting. It’s still a good idea to keep a close eye on your plants, as monitoring ensures you’ll catch pests, diseases, and cultural issues before they’re too severe.

Light

‘Chesnok Red’ garlic needs full sun for proper growth. Aim to give your bulbs six to eight hours of direct sunlight daily. They may not grow full size under partial shade, and they attract more pests and diseases than normal. Wherever corn, tomatoes, or peppers are happy, this crop will grow well.

Water

Garlic has interesting water requirements; they shift throughout its lifetime. Young plants need some moisture to establish themselves without fall rains. Aim for moist soil that isn’t soggy. Gardeners in areas like the Pacific Northwest have natural fall rainfall and won’t have to water, although growers in dry regions may need to.

Winter dormancy signals less water needs. Cut back on watering, especially if cloves grow beneath snow cover. As they’re not actively growing, they need little water. Increase your watering frequency once spring arrives—warm temperatures alongside long days tell garlic it’s time for growth. 

After summer, when the tops die back, you’ll want to stop watering altogether. This allows bulbs to form dry, papery coatings that protect them from rot. 

Soil

This hardneck needs rich, well-draining soil. Soils with lots of organic matter are perfect—they provide air pockets, nutrients, and diverse soil microbiomes. Clay or sandy soils need amendments before you plant your garlic. 

Instead of fertilizing soils before planting, I recommend amending your soil with compost or organic mulch. Do this two to four weeks before planting cloves; your soil will be nice and rich when you’re planting.

Don’t have the time? Amend your soil as you plant cloves in the fall. It’ll add nutrients into your soil while crop grows and preserve soil moisture and warmth under adverse storms.

Fertilizing

Maintenance

Little pruning or digging is required for this culinary classic. Cloves appreciate good airflow, so prune any other plants shading out your crop. For example, if you’re growing them amongst your tomatoes, cut off any tomato foliage covering the leaves. Remove any weeds around the cloves so they have full access to moisture and nutrients. 

Propagation

There are two ways for propagating ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic—through clove division or bulbils. Exponentially increase your harvest by using a combination of both.

Division

The main way to propagate hardnecks is the easiest. Take the biggest cloves from harvested bulbs and save them for fall plantings. That’s all there is to it! Using the biggest ones ensures you’ll harvest large bulbs. You can use small cloves, just know they won’t produce as much garlic as big ones.

If you plant during spring without a cold period, your cloves will develop into giant, single cloves. Plant these during fall for ginormous harvests that come next summer.

Bulbils

Bulbils are little cloves that develop off of hardneck scapes. Let one or two of your cloves flower this year, and they’ll each produce a clump of bulbils. Flower production sucks energy from bulb production, so choose to let garlic flower if you don’t intend on harvesting big cloves. 

One method I use is letting a single hardneck clove produce a scape, then bulbils. I pluck all other growing scapes, so they put energy into making a considerable bulb harvest. One garlic scape gives me dozens of bulbils, whereas one clove only produces a few cloves for harvesting. I take a few and put them in beds for a year, while I put all the bulbils in beds for two years. 

I continue increasing my garlic planting supply this way while still harvesting enough cloves to eat. Use cloves and bulbils to increase your harvest for free! Simply let your garlic flower, collect bulbils, and plant them during fall alongside cloves. 

One added benefit of planting bulbils is the possibility of acclimating your favorite garlic variety to your climate. If you live in the South, and you want to grow a hardneck, planting the bulbil of your favorite variety helps the plant adjust to the existing climate. 

Harvesting and Storage

There are two ways to harvest garlic: lifting or plucking it out of your garden beds. Lifting is best for a crop in its own bed, as this method could hurt neighboring plant roots. Using a pitchfork, broadfork, or a hori hori, plunge it deep below your bulbs. Avoid stabbing the cloves. Then, raise them with the soil attached. Once you raise the soil, you can easily pull the bulbs from your beds.

Before storing garlic, you’ll need to cure it. Curing helps garlic last longer in storage. Hang heads up to dry in bunches with good airflow and cool temperatures. Leave all roots, stalks, and leaves attached while they cure. A carport, covered patio, or awning provide excellent curing environments. Temperature ranges between 50 and 65°F (10-18°C) and 40-50% humidity are optimal. 

Leave them for two weeks before cutting them down. Then, slice off stems and roots. Store cured hardneck bulbs in your pantry for four to six months or in your freezer for six months. Remember to save the largest bulbs for planting so you’ll have a harvest next year.

Common Problems

Garlic is relatively pest and disease-free—gardeners often plant it as a pest repellent because of its strong scent. When pests or diseases do strike, some simple cultural techniques help remedy them. 

Pests

Onion thrips sometimes target hardneck varieties. These leaf suckers use their piercing mouthparts to drink delicious nutrients from plants. You’ll notice yellowing leaves early in the season; they’ll often have little spots on them. Onion thrips rarely threaten harvests, as they target leaves, not bulbs. Wash them off with a strong hose stream daily until their population falls. 

Bulb and stem nematodes live in soils, reproducing silently before attacking your garlic. Use predatory nematodes to keep this pest at bay, or consider crop rotation. Beneficial nematode treatments should be applied in two sessions spaced two weeks apart.

Apply nematodes in temperate fall or spring weather before the ground temperature reaches 45°F (7°C). Rotate where you grow garlic every year, putting it somewhere it hasn’t grown for a while. Nematodes quickly disappear without their host plants.

Diseases

Although rare, some diseases do infect ‘Chesnok Red’ garlic. Watch for gray mold and rust. Gray mold hits bulbs in moist soils later during the growing season. It infects broken or cracked pieces, spreading a white-gray mold that causes mushy texture. Keep it at bay by letting soils dry once the leaves start yellowing. Dispose of infected bulbs far away from your garden and harvest. 

Rust also infects this variety in some cases. It’s also a fungus, growing orange-brown spots on garlic foliage. This disease rarely hurts harvests, as most damage occurs on leaves. If many leaves look infected, cut them off to prevent further spread. Give future plants good airflow and compost, and plant them during fall to keep future rust infections away. 

The source of your seed garlic is very important for disease-prevention. We offer organic, disease-free bulbs for pre-order at the end of summer.