Looking forward to planting garlic this year, and I’m wondering what kind of spacing people are using.
We use 32 inch beds here. And i hear about most people using 3 rows in a 32 inch bed.
Personally I’ve tried 3 rows with 6 inch in-row spacing, and been happy with the results.
I’ve also done 4 rows and been happy as well.
I tried a couple beds at 5 rows this year and those seemed to do reasonably well as well (given that all the garlic struggled this season).
I think that the conventional wisdom is that the more space they have the better they do (less competition for light, water, nutrients). The other reason for a lof of farms out there is that the fewer the rows, the easier it is to weed between them.
Here is a photo of my garlic setup of 3 rows on 40 in (1 m) wide beds. I think I totally could have done 4 rows though, especially on a bed that wide.
We have 5’ wide beds and normally plant 7 rows across it; 8" spacing in other words. We get some pretty big heads! It is important to keep it weeded though.
