🧄 Garlic
Planted in autumn, quietly rooting through the cold — the long game.
Garlic at a glance
Is Garlic frost tolerant?
Yes — it is one of the hardier crops. It shrugs off frost down to -12°C and is only killed below -20°C.
What temperature does Garlic grow best in?
It grows best between 4 and 24°C. Below 1°C it stops growing altogether, and above 30°C it slows down.
How many days does Garlic take to mature?
About 120–150 days (overwinter). That is a typical figure: it needs roughly 1000 °C·d of warmth above 1°C, so a warm season gets it there sooner and a cool one later. The city calendars below give the sow and harvest dates for each place.
Is Garlic a cool-season or warm-season crop?
A cool-season crop. It does best in the mild weather of spring and autumn (and through winter where winters are mild), and slows down in summer heat above 30°C.
What the numbers mean
These are the actual parameters this game runs on. Growth is driven by growing degree days: each day contributes max(0, min(mean temp, 26) − 1), and Garlic is ready when that total reaches 1000. That is why the same seed takes a very different number of days in Dublin and in Guangzhou.
| Base temperature | 1°CBelow this, the plant accumulates no growing degree days at all. |
|---|---|
| Degree days to maturity | 1000 °C·dThe heat budget it must accumulate before it is ready to pick. |
| Comfortable range | 4–24°CWhere it grows without stress. |
| Frost damage below | -12°CLeaves start taking frost damage below this low. |
| Killed below | -20°CBelow this it does not come back. |
| Heat stress above | 30°CAbove this the plant slows down and stops setting fruit well. |
| Typical time to harvest | 120–150 days (overwinter) |
| Yield per bed | 12 bulbs |
Things worth knowing
- Garlic needs a spell of cold (vernalization) to split into cloves — that's why it's planted in fall.
- Every clove grows into a whole new bulb; garlic hasn't bothered with seeds for thousands of years.
Where and when to sow Garlic
Pick your city to see the months when Garlic scores well against that city's real climate records: