Growing Garlic + Event recap: The SG Garlic Festival 2026

Korumburra recently hosted the annual Garlic Festival once again and with the last of the warm summer weather, visitors enjoyed all that was on offer for the festival, some brave enough to try popsicle ice creams flavoured with black garlic, either loving or loathing the taste.

A highlight of the festival was a presentation at "The Garlic University" by Vele Civijovski from Garlic Kingdom which is located in the Cooma area of NSW with his presentation called " A starters guide for home growing garlic".

Photo credit- https://www.garlickingdom.com.au/our-garlic-media#61505bdb975c7

Vele divulged a lot of useful information and shared his insight into growing garlic based on his expertise on the topic.

Lucky for South Gippsland growers our region is very suitable indeed for growing garlic! We are lucky to be able to grow most varieties well, and below is a thorough recap of the useful information Vele spoke about in his presentation.

Save this information or bookmark this page for garlic planting time, which is around March in our climate. Tell us in the comments if you have additional tips or experiences to share about growing garlic in South Gippsland and surrounds.

All photos below credited to the Garlic Kingdom website, images found here.

Vele grows in raised beds, on flat land, the beds are 43cm high (taller is better for your back) but Vele chose a more environmentally friendly approach and used scrap and recycled materials his family had been collecting for years to constuct his long raised beds. The first layer used to fill the beds are logs, using the German hugelkultur permaculture technique, he then adds a layer of sheep manure, then a hay layer. Finally he feeds the garlic with quality compost of around 15-20cm and mulch for the top layer. Compost creates food, drainage, bioculture, less weeds, and he only weeds twice a year. You're aiming for around 7.7ph for soil acidity. Lower or higher and they won't absorb the nutritients. Your soil should feel cool, moist.

When it comes to planting there are many things to consider, Vele suggests reaching out to a local expert which varieties suit your climate, and even then plant sub varieties for changes in weather that particular season/year. Planting diversity, for climate and culinary experience, certain garlics even suit certain cooking fats. Planting different varieties for different cuisines is ideal, for example plant Spanish creoles for paella, don't use a Chinese garlic for Spanish dishes, you will taste the difference so diversity is best.

Varieties sometimes carry their own issues, Turbans tend to have more rust but are commonly grown and can do well in our region. Creoles and turbans (hard neck varieties) will only develop scapes in cold climates. Choose seed garlic from local growers, where the garlic has grown to suit your climate, however this can come with risk of disease, so growing from bulbils is harder, but this provides disease free garlic. Bulbils emerge from the flowers of Hardneck varieties, developing in the flowerhead, and typically take 2-3 years to mature into full sized bulbs.

Once you have your planting beds ready, and you've chosen your varieties what's next? Vele discussed how he used 5cm grid mesh as a ruler template for measuring his planting distance, plant 15cm each way, or 20cm for high rainfall area, if you have rust in your area, next year make the spacing further apart 25 or 30cm. The no dig method is optimal, scratching method is okay. Reduces loss of carbons and gases, digging or tilling dries it out and kills off soil biology. Vele discussed that typically garlic doesn't like competition, monocuture has better results for garlic however he mentioned discussions he'd had with potato growers who said that garlic is a great "companion" plant for potatoes, the garlic will suffer but the potatoes will be huge (maybe not the ideal thing for garlic growing, but something to keep in mind to use your small cloves for this sacrificial method to grow big potatoes). If you do want to use the space to it's maximum potential, Vele suggested some strategic planning, plant garlic in between your tomato "planned" spots, 30cm apart, and once the garlic comes out, plant tomatoes, and succession plant.

Water regularly, keep it moist, but avoid wet feet, garlic doesn't like to sit in water and it needs good drainage. Vele mentioned that the rainfall average is 750ml per year in his region. It's not regular so he still waters regularly. Drip watering is better to avoid fungal issues, overhead watering only in the morning if you have to. Once scapes have emerged you can taper off with the watering. In temperatures between 30-35 degrees the leaves will start to die off. Each leaf represents 1 week of dying off.

Harvest garlic scapes from hardneck garlic at 15 to 20cm length garlic scapes, freeze them for up to 3-6 months. Use in stir fries, soups, salads, for a delicious mild garlic flavour and green bean sort of texture and look, but not stringy.

During the drought Vele had problems with rabbits locally so raised beds saved his garlic from being eaten. He mentioned that rabbits wouldn't usually eat garlic but in a drought it's different story.

Now to the most common issues faced when growing garlic, the first being rust.

His solution is watering in the morning and grow them further apart next year.

There is a Bicarb vinegar solution, the recipe can be found online, be he warned to be careful, test patch first, it changes the acidity of your soil. If only a few leaves are showing sign of rust he recommended removing them, and dispose of in the bin not the compost.

Another common issue is called "Witches Brooming", it's a climatic condition, due to variations in temperature or too much fertiliser, this is secondary shooting and ruins the bulbs. Avoid it by not adding too much nitrogen in the last 60 days from harvest, and reduce the amount they are given to taper off. They also need increased trace elements towards the end of their growth, use natural charlie carp not synthetic as the levels are not right. Taper off your fertilising in the end of September. "Witches Brooming" is most prevalent in Turban varieties.

Late freezing temps at night can kill the plants, mostly turbans, the stem cells collapsed from the freeze at below -7 degrees. Use frost cloth to protect them if there is threat of frost.

Vele expressed the number one mistake made is harvesting at the wrong time and expressed the importance to IDENTIFY WHEN TO HARVEST!

Don't follow what others are doing, your microclimate and variety will dictate when to harvest, run your own race, be patient. Harvest softnecks at 6 green leaves remaining and for hardnecks at 4.5 green leaves remaining.

To check, you can first scratch the soil at the top, can you feel the bumps of the clove forming, garlic grows the most at the end of it's cycle when it "bulbs up", each leaf is a skin of the bulb (bulb wrappers), so if you leave ALL the leaves to dry off, the bulb won't store as well. 

If you harvest hardnecks at 5.5 - 6 green leaves, you'll loose 30% of your bulb mass if you harvested too early, wait a week till there are 4.5 green leaves remaining to get bigger bulbs. 

For elephant garlic, which is actually a variety of Leek, but still in the allium family, it's 6 green leaves remaining for harvest, it also develops a scape.

Once harvested, you must then cure your garlic. Cure for 4 to 6 weeks, curing develops the flavours, and remember to leave a bit of stem. 8-9 weeks curing for wet summers. Make sure to avoid moisture during curing. Vele has fans on non stop. At least for the first week (very important). 

Optium storage is at 13- 16 degrees, if you leave them for 10 days at 5-8 degrees or lower they will start to sprout. Like you might see at a supermarket because they're in the refrigerated areas.