PlantSowGrowHow to grow Elephant Garlic
Allium ampeloprasum
🥕 Vegetable
🌱 Grown each year
Huge, mild, sweet cloves — closer to a leek than true garlic. Superb roasted whole.
At a glance: Sow late August to early October, harvest from mid April.
When to sow, plant and harvest
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Sow outdoors
Harvest
Timed for a typical UK garden (last frost mid-April). The app uses your own town's frost dates.
Growing Elephant Garlic: what it needs
- Light
- Full sun · 6+ hours a day
- Watering
- Water in dry spells, especially as crops swell
- Soil
- Firm, well-drained soil
- Spacing
- 25 cm, 10 cm deep
- In pots
- Only in large containers
- Feeding
- A general fertiliser before planting
- Harvest
- About 240 days from sowing
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 3–9
Step by step
- Late August – early October · 9 weeks before the first autumn frost
Plant Cloves
Plant cloves 25 cm, 10 cm deep apart in rows.
- 21–60 days after “Plant Cloves” · Mid September – mid October
Look for Shoots
Green shoots should be showing. Keep weeds down — these crops hate competition.
- 180–220 days after “Look for Shoots” · Early March – mid April
Remove Flower Stems
Cut off the curly flower stems (scapes) in early summer — they are delicious stir-fried and the bulbs grow bigger.
- 21–35 days after “Remove Flower Stems” · Late March – mid April
Weed and Water
Hoe off weeds between rows and water in dry spells — even moisture gives better crops.
- 240–290 days after “Plant Cloves” · Mid April – early June
Harvest
Lift when the lower leaves turn yellow in midsummer.
- 7–21 days after “Harvest” · Late April – early May
Dry and Store
Dry for 2–3 weeks somewhere airy, then store in nets.
