A braid of garlic and a bin of keepers get you through flu season and bland potatoes.

Sow

Garlic cloves October 1–20, 2 in deep, mulch with leaves. Onion sets or plants April 1. Long-day varieties only (this is not Georgia).

Spacing

Garlic 6 in, rows 12 in. Onions 4 in.

Days

Garlic June–July. Onions July.

Harvest

Garlic when 4–5 lower leaves brown. Onions when tops flop. Pull, cure 2 weeks under cover with air.

Store

Cool, dry, dark, never plastic. Softneck garlic braids. Hardneck: cut tops, store bulbs. Copra and Patterson onions keep until March.

Seed

Garlic is cloves of the best bulbs. Replant the biggest. Onions are biennial — plant a keeper and let it make a seed head.

Companions

Carrot, beet, brassicas. Not with peas or beans.

Pests

Onion maggot in wet springs — rotate, don’t plant in last year’s onion bed. Leave some flowering garlic for the bees.

Buy seed garlic once, then never again if you cure it right.

A ‘soft’ garlic in January was not cured long enough or was stored in a damp cellar.