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Growing garlic from seed can be tricky, as it’s nearly impossible to get your hands on “true garlic seed.” You can, however, grow garlic from top-setting bulbils, which behave like seeds (though they’re not in a technical sense).
I’m going to walk you through how to harvest and cultivate garlic from bulbils produce at the top of the plant, that many people call “garlic seed.” You can, in fact, harvest these above ground as well as a mature garlic bulb for your kitchen below ground.
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(This article discusses top-setting garlic bulbils, which many people call “garlic seed.” They’re technically clones of the parent plant, rather than true seed produced by sexual reproduction and pollination. It is possible to produce garlic seed, but it’s quite tricky. That’s a different process, that’s much more complicated. If you’d like to learn the specifics, I have an article here on hand pollinating garlic to produce true garlic seed. For the rest of us, not all that concerned with the technical differences between bulbils and “true seed” I’m going to walk you through the easier bulbil method below.)
There’s a big difference between ‘garlic seed’ and ‘seed garlic.’ Most people plant seed garlic, and if you’re dealing with a reputable supplier, that means planting large well-formed garlic cloves from healthy disease-free stock.
More often than not, it actually means planting the garlic that feed stores buy from farmers that were too ugly or misshapen to be sold in a grocery store as cooking garlic. Garlic seed, on the other hand, is made in abundance after homegrown garlic plants flower in the late spring or early summer.
Northern gardeners know that garlic scapes are a real spring treat. After the garlic has grown tall and healthy, it sends out a coiling flower known as a garlic scape. Generally, those garlic scapes are cut off as soon as they appear because if the plant puts its energy into seed, it won’t produce a large bulb.
A densely planted garlic patch, with a plant every 4 to 6 inches means a lot of scapes to harvest. I harvest garlic scapes for stir-fries, omelets and garlic scape pickles. Every year, try as I might, I always miss scapes in the garlic patch.
In late summer and early fall, they mature into heavy heads with small garlic bulbils and those are true garlic seed. While an heirloom hard neck garlic variety may only produce 4 to 8 large cloves to be saved for seed, it will produce somewhere between 20 and 100 little bulbils if the scapes are left intact. As you can see, growing and saving garlic seed instead of seed garlic pays back in huge dividends.
Each tiny garlic bulbil is like a miniature garlic clove and is in effect a garlic seed. The total amount of garlic seed produced depends on the variety, and types that produce huge numbers are favored by ‘seed garlic’ farmers that use the ‘garlic seed’ to grow out huge crops of garlic bulbs to sell to backyard gardeners as planting garlic cloves.
If you read through wholesale catalogs targeted at farmers, varieties will say “great for propagation, variety produces over 100 bulbils per plant.” Knowing that many commercial growers are taking the time to plant garlic seed rather than seed garlic drives home the point that it’s by far the most cost-effective way to propagate garlic.
Harvesting Garlic Seed
Start by leaving a few scapes on garlic plants in the spring. They’ll mature into garlic seed by the late summer, and be ready for harvest once they dry and the plant begins to die back. The garlic bulb at the base of the plant will still be usable and fully formed, but likely much smaller than the other bulbs nearby.
Break the bulbils apart and leave them to dry in a protected, well-ventilated area for a few days. Since they’re not underground they condition much faster than curing a garlic bulb. After a few days, store them in a cool, dry place out of direct sunlight until the fall.
Growing Garlic from Seed
Planting garlic seed is a bit different than seed garlic cloves. While seed garlic cloves will produce a harvestable crop the following year, garlic seed takes a bit longer before harvest.
The tiny bulbil is much smaller than a garlic clove, and the plant will need a full year to get established in the soil and grow to the size of a garlic clove. Another year later, it’ll produce a full harvestable garlic bulb.
Start by planting garlic seeds in the fall at the same time as your regular garlic bulbs. They should be kept separate because they’ll take extra time to mature and you’ll be disappointed if you accidentally harvest them with your garlic crop the summer following planting.
Garlic grown from bulbils can take up to three years to mature if the initial garlic seed was quite small. How big the bulbils are will depend on the garlic variety, and they range in size from large peas down to the size of a grain of rice. The largest specimens can produce harvestable garlic in as little as two years, while the tiny ones will need a full three years to mature.
In that time, they’ll mostly just need to be left alone. Keep them in a mulched, weed-free bed and quietly bide your time until the eventual harvest of a huge crop of nearly free garlic. Without the considerable expense of seed garlic, which generally sells for $3 to $5 per bulb, this harvest is almost free.
In the meantime, you essentially have perennial garlic that’s helping deter pests from the rest of your garden.
Great article. Very informative! I’ve been growing garlic for only a few years. I made scape butter this year and put some scapes in pot of water on my deck. It made an interesting arrangement. Recently, they flowered and the bulbils began to fall. I didn’t know anything about them but this fall I will plant them as you directed. I may try some in a whiskey barrel so I won’t lose sight of them. Thanks so much for the article!
Hello, I have planted seeds for garlic they have come up as tiny blades of grass. My question is do I just leave these in the ground for another year.
Yes, leave them as they are for another year so they can bulb up.
Do you sell garlic scape seeds (top seed garlic) ?
Ray.
I don’t, and I don’t know of anyone that does.
Hi Ashley,
I’ve been successfully growing hardneck garlic in VT for the last 8 years, but for the past 3 years, I’ve had clusters of small garlic plants popping up in the beds, presumably from scapes that were not harvested and grew the next season. Last fall, I divided a couple of these clusters, picked out the biggest plantlets, and planted them individually, hoping for 2 year mature garlic. Instead, what came up are more clusters of many little shoots, almost like chives. Basically what I started with. Any thoughts about what is going on here? Thanks as always for your fabulous content.
Hey Lance,
My best guess is that it’s not actually cultivated garlic growing in those clusters, as that will easily form heads when separated. There are A LOT of random allium species that look like garlic though, but grow in grass like clumps instead of single garlic like stalks. My best guess is you have something like wild garlic (Allium vineale) that got into your beds. Kinda cool, and useful in its own right. Does this look like it? https://foragerchef.com/onion-grass-allium-vineale/
Nope, it’s not onion grass. The stems are not round or hollow, and the leaves are flat.
I will email you a picture since there doesn’t seem to be a way to attatch one here. Thanks
didn’t say how deep to plant, 4″ like planting cloves?
You want to plant garlic bulbils about 1 to 2 inches deep.
Dear Ashley,
Duck,Duck Go led me to your website when I typed in “How Do I Grow Seeds for Garlic?” Your website is beautiful, you are so patient in your responses, and I could go on and on about the quality., including your disclosures. And I am so excited to find “practical self-reliance”. I’m an old lady in the NEK, trying to reestablish gardening practices that were abandoned 20 years ago when I moved to PA. I’m back, but the climate has changed, the rain pattern has changed, and I am inundated with insect and small mammal predation I never experienced before. I know now that I will be able to find help here. May your efforts reward you.
Sincerely,
Kathleen Johnson
Wonderful Kathleen, I’m so glad you’re here! Yes, even in the past 15 years I’ve been here the weather pattern really has shifted, and I’m having trouble adapting my garden to the changes of the past few years. Never a dull moment for sure!
we have a property n East TN. On the property is still the 1900s farmhouse and close to it grows garlic. This year I took the bulbs out of the soil, they are huge. I also have a seed head. How can I propagate from this? Obviously these garlic plants are ancient (last time somebody lived in this house was the 70s) and I would love to keep them going in another location. Thanks
You can allow the bulbs to cure and then plant the individual cloves in the fall for a harvest next year. You can also plant the little bulbils on top from the seed head but they will take a bit more time to mature.
What a great article! Thanks so much for the information. I have only been doing some gardening for a few years but I am at a point where I want to share what I have learned:) I am giving a seed starting demonstration in January and I want to include things that don’t have “seeds”. I had NO idea about the bulbils, so you have educated me and I can pass that along:) If you have any advice on a seed starting educational talk, I would appreciate any help I can get:)
You’re very welcome. So glad it was helpful for you. Just jump in and do it and you will learn how to make adjustments along the way. I’m sure you’ll do great!
I pulled/harvested the garlic when the flower bulb was closed and intact. Chopped off the garlic bulb, put the garlic flower stems in a bucket of water on the north side of the house for a week. The flower bulb grew bigger and when ready, I collected the flower bulbs, put them in my cold room, ready for fall planting.
Hi. Re the recently opening garlic flower on my garlic planted last fall-they are starting o open and now I understand the resulting small corn sized kernels are actulally small garlic cloves that I can plant and just wait a couple of years. Can I just take them now or must I wait until the plant turns brown? It’d be nice to get ’em started early.
I noted you menitoning that the plants kind of hang around in the high heat times-did Iunderstand correctly? My plants are now waist high and I do not want to mess with them.
I have done some garlic reading and am stil unsure of when to harvest them. Seems like August/September might be the best but am looking for a sure fire way of harvesting.
You want to wait to harvest the bulbils until they are brown and the plant starts to die back.
I am a new reader of your blog and have gleaned so much wisdom this summer. Thank you!
How carefully do you tend your planted bulbils during the first growing season? Do you water with the same frequency that you would for garlic that will be harvested? Do you fertilize?
I would treat it the same as any other garlic. Here is a post all about growing garlic that might help. https://practicalselfreliance.com/how-to-grow-garlic/ Just let me know if you have any other questions.
My bulbils that I planted last fall, have died back. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now. Replant them?!
You can leave them and grow them like a perennial. See this post here for more information. https://practicalselfreliance.com/perennial-garlic/
Hi Ashley,
Have you, or have you ever heard of folks eating the tiny garlic bulbils? We may have a wild garlic patch, because the seed heads are about the size of a quarter and contain 50 or more bulbils, each the size of a grain of rice. I have eaten them just out of hand, and am wondering if I could use them in quantity, either chopped up of whole to season a dish? Is there any danger in eating them in quantity? Thanks for all the good information on your site. I too am in Vermont, north of Burlington along Lake Champlain.
I haven’t actually tried this myself but I have heard that they are delicious fermented. I also haven’t heard of any danger in consuming them in quantity. Be sure to check back and let us know how they turn out.
Thanks for getting back to me. I am going to research more on the fermented angle. Just made pesto and added a tablespoon of the tiny bulbils. Came out great. I have been eating them for about a week now, and so far, no adverse affects.
You’re very welcome. Thanks for the update.
Great Info. Appreciate the detail.
Garlic! The gift that keeps giving.
We’re so glad you enjoyed the post.
I met a lady who had garlic and she ripped them right out of the ground and gave them to me. What do I do now for growing my own with what she gave me? There are some flowers and some with out.
You can just divide them into individual bulbs and plant each one.
Fascinating information Ashley. I live in Western Australia just outside Perth metropolitan area in the wine growing district in the valley.. Our climate is classified as temperate/Mediterranean. As a rule we don’t have frost but during our winter (June to August) temperature gets down to between 2 – 10 C. Right now we are in the second half of spring At the moment my garlic is still green while friends in another suburb harvested theirs. I am happy to be at this stage of growing because I will be able to observe and practice your knowledge and instructions. I have come across bulbils but never paid attention what they are and what to do with them, If they are little clones of the parent plant then that’s nature miracle. I am also experimenting this year with “Walking Onions”. Are you familiar with them and would you have any advice for me? Thank you for the enlightenment.
The walking onions are mentioned briefly in this post. They are very easy to grow and require very little care.
Makes sense. Thank you! Happy fall gardening.
Hi Ashley, great information here. I have a question, not sure if it was already asked in the comments. I planted seed garlic and mulched less than a month ago and they already have sprouts. Is this normal or did something else get in my bed and germinated?! I’m in zone9 if that makes a difference at all.
Thank you for the great info here.
That’s totally normal. They will sprout in the fall, even here in Vermont they put on probably 2” worth of growth in the fall before we get snow and they take a break and wait until spring. In zone 9, they’ll honestly probably just grow all winter long and not go dormant, as they thrive in cool temps and die back in the heat even here.
Great article. Thanks. I only discovered the bulbils this year while drying the harvested garlic with the flowers still on the stalk. I did not know what they were. I am going to plant some in my greenhouse this fall just for giggles and grins. The article brought a smile to my face at one point.
“More often than not, it actually means planting the garlic that feed stores buy from farmers that were too ugly or misshapen to be sold in a grocery store as cooking garlic. Garlic seed, on the other hand, is made in abundance after homegrown garlic plants flower in the late spring or early summer.”
With a little sick imagination and a weird sense of humor first sentence can be read to mean that the “farmers” were too ugly or misshapen to be sold in grocery stores.
Anyway thanks again for sharing your knowledge.
Ha ha. That is pretty funny. Hope you enjoy experimenting with your garlic bulbils.
Michael Murphy. i had the same response re the ‘ugly farmers’. the best jokes are unintentional.
Ruben Buttigieg, Victoria, Australia