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    Home » Articles » Gardening

    Homemade Garlic Planting Tool Makes Planting Seed Go Faster

    by Eric · This post may contain affiliate links, its one way we pay the bills. · 11 Comments

    This homemade garlic planting tool helps if you are planting more than a few rows of garlic. Planting a few rows of garlic in your home garden is pretty straightforward. To plant garlic for a market grower is a bigger deal. I was asked by a neighbor who sells garlic to help him plant seed garlic before the coming snow storm. The storm dumped 20" of snow on this field a few hours after we finished planting garlic. Watch our How To Plant & Grow Garlic video here.

    While we were planting garlic I took photos to show you all how a market farmer plants garlic. This garlic field is not large enough for heavy equipment, so while the garlic is planted by hand, this homemade garlic planting tool might help small farmers reading this.

    All the seed garlic bulbs are broken apart by hand, I don't know of a mechanical method to do this, though I'm sure a machine exists for large scale garlic growers.

    garlic planting tool

    Seed garlic broken up by hand

    First of all, the field is tilled with a small disc several times to turn over all the weeds and cover crops, then the rows of garlic are staked out with string. Each row is 5 plants wide, then there is a 24" wide space between rows. This space should be the width of your rototiller, so you can till under weeds that grow on the walking paths between the rows of garlic.

    disc rig gets the garlic field ready

    The holes the seed garlic is placed in are made by this homemade garlic planter rig built by the farmer. It has 5 metal tips on it, with two pieces of wood jutting out perpendicular for proper spacing between rows. Two people move the garlic seed hole maker along the row. When pressing the rig into the soil to make the holes, each person places a foot on the rig to make the holes. The rig is rocked back and forth to firm up the walls of the holes.

    garlic planting tool

    Metal Tips on Garlic Planter, note row spacers sticking out side of rig, just above hole making tips

    garlic planting tool

    Garlic Planting Tool In Action

     

    garlic planting tool

    holes made by garlic planter rig

    The seed garlic is put in each hole by hand - be sure to use knee pads - you're on your knees a long time in this process.

    garlic planting tool

    The rows are then raked over, the soil filling up each hole.

    I bet there are a few planting rigs farmers have made to automate this process more, my friend likes it this way, and his garlic field is not huge.

    garlic planting tool

    Raking soil over seed garlic

    garlic planting tool

    raking soil over seed

    Do you have some tips for planting garlic? or better ways to plant garlic? Let us know below:

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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Stevn price

      September 02, 2014 at 8:47 pm

      How do you deal with weeds?

    2. Eric Gunnar Rochow

      September 29, 2014 at 9:51 am

      the weeds are hand pulled or they use a hoe, you could mechanize it if you want.

    3. Joshua

      July 24, 2015 at 12:22 pm

      I have liked your small scale guidance to growing Galic.

    4. Larrylarson

      July 24, 2015 at 3:05 pm

      just trying to learn something

    5. Emmie Karam

      October 13, 2015 at 2:54 pm

      Hi After the garlic is planted and covered with dirt, do you place mulch in the form of hay,
      straw, or sea weed over top? If so when is this removed in spring, if at all.
      Thanks. EK

    6. Eric

      October 20, 2015 at 9:39 am

      Hi Emmie, I don't mulch my seed garlic. some people do, but i haven't seen any difference in my crop. if you were to mulch it, the mulch needs to be removed when the garlic starts to sprout, I think. thx, eric.

    7. ish

      November 01, 2015 at 10:35 pm

      Hi Larry, I accidentally visited your website and like the way you are doing garlic farming. Basically I am from India and studying in Australia at the moment. I was having a word with my dad last night and he was telling me that he is going to cultivate garlic this time. He is a farmer and engaged in all the decade old tradition ways of farming which basically required lots of manpower in sowing and ripping and now a days it become very hard to find labors and bit expensive too. I want to help him by using technology in the field. Honestly we don't have that much good farming infrastructure.We have a tractor only. I become curious when I saw your garlic planter rig to make holes. Is it designed by you ? I am very much interested in new farming methods and introduce them to my dad, at least by this way I can help him.

    8. Eric

      November 03, 2015 at 10:59 am

      The garlic rig was built by my friend the garlic farmer, it works well. Its still lots of work to plant the garlic by hand. thx! eric.

    9. jo endersbee

      November 12, 2015 at 11:06 pm

      Ish - I am a small scale garlic grower in Western Australia, if this is where you are you are welcome to come and have a look at our growing/planting systems, the only machinery we use is a small tractor. We have a similar planting frame to this - but for four rows at a time. Changing it over to be a roller pulled by the tractor as we scale up.

    10. Todd

      October 05, 2017 at 3:00 pm

      I really like that tool idea! I want to make one for myself. I'm trying to figure out what those metal pegs/straps are made of to screw into the wood? Thanks!

    11. BestMickey

      September 03, 2018 at 9:06 pm

      I see you don't monetize your site, don't waste your
      traffic, you can earn additional cash every month. You can use the best adsense alternative for any
      type of website (they approve all websites), for more info simply search in gooogle:
      boorfe's tips monetize your website

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