7 Ways to Use Garlic Plants

Garlic is a favorite ingredient for many cooks, and it is found prominently in lots of different types of cuisines. Italian food has it. Korean food. Chinese food. Indian. And, of course, it has more or less become ubiquitous in home-cooked stuff.

It also has lots of medicinal uses and health benefits. Garlic is commonly used to help with heart conditions, and it can be used to treat things as common as colds. It has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory properties, too.

Then, there is garlic, the plant. It is from the allium genus, which includes onions, shallots, leeks, and chives. All alliums are technically edible, and they are fairly easy plants to grow with lots of uses—beyond food—in the garden.

Source: ourstoneyacres/YouTube

More to Eat Than Cloves

Most of us only know garlic as the heads and cloves we buy at the supermarket, but the plant has many more edible parts. The whole thing is more or less edible. The leaves can be used similarly to the leaves of leeks or green onions. The scapes, the stem that the flower grows on, can be prepared similarly to asparagus, and they have the same shape and texture. They are harvested at about the same time as asparagus, too. The flowers make great additions to salads or can be along with potatoes (in mashed potatoes, potato salad, home fries, etc.)

Friends of Fruit Trees

Planting garlic around fruit trees and throughout backyards orchards is great. The flowers attract lots of beneficial pollinators, and the aroma repels lots of unwanted visitors, such as moles and browsing animals. It also repels certain insects and helps to prevent bacterial and fungal issues. Organically grown fruit trees should have garlic growing with them.

Source: The Ripe Tomato Farms/YouTube

Companion Planting All-Around

Of course, garlic doesn’t just help fruit trees. All of those great qualities listed above can be of benefit to lots of plants. Some are particularly fond of being planted alongside garlic. Tomatoes not only pair well with garlic on the plate, but they make a great duo in the garden. Roses love being planted with garlic, which helps to keep pests and diseases at bay. Strawberries are said to improve in flavor when planted with garlic. Garlic, however, slows the growth of legumes, so it is generally recommended not to plant them near each other.

Make Natural Fungicide

Garlic has anti-fungal properties, and those traits make garlic a great natural anti-fungal treatment for other plants. A few cloves of garlic can be blended with a pint of water. After letting the mixture steep for an hour or so, the garlic can then be strained away and the liquid sprayed on plants dealing with powdery mildew and fungus. This will also ward off insects.

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Homemade Pest Control

While steep garlic water is good for keeping pests away from plants, many people combine garlic with hot pepper and a little olive oil (sounds tasty!) to make pest repellent. Those aromas are just too much for many insects to tolerate. (First dates may be an issue as well.)

Ornamental Flare with Edible Fare

Some alliums get sold as ornamental plants. The genus, as a whole, has very striking, pom-pom-like flowers that often involve a bit of purple. Elephant garlic can send up four-foot stems with huge flower bulbs, and smaller garlic plants make great garden borders, doing their companion planting thing as well as adding some beauty. If left in the ground, they’ll come back year after year, multiplying in size (one plant for each garlic clove last year’s plant produced).

Source: Garden Answer Highlights/YouTube

Home/Kitchen Decorations

For those crafty types, homegrown garlic can be woven into beautiful displays. The long stems are left attached to the garlic bulbs, and they are braided together. The collection of garlic bulbs is then hung in the pantry or kitchen to dry and store for later use. Individual heads can be clipped off as they are needed.

The great thing about garlic is that cultivating it is as simple as planting a clove, so any type of garlic one can find can soon be growing in the garden. It’s a tough plant that survives the winter (best planted in late summer/early autumn) and is ready to pick in mid-summer. This is one of the more agreeable plants to grow, and it does the rest of the garden so much good.

Related Content:

• Garlic Scape: What is It and Why You Should Use It
• 8 Perennial Plants for Your Veggie Garden That Will Provide Years of Fresh Food!
• How to Humanely Protect Your Garden from Moles, Voles, Gophers, and More
• Culinary Herbs for Your Fall and Winter Garden
• Deterring Wild Animals from Eating Your Garden Before You Do

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