Garlic — delicious, hardy, and packed with health benefits — is a low maintenance and cold-hardy crop that actually grows best if planted in the fall. Follow these tips to help you get started.

Garlic grows best when its foliage has plenty of time to develop. The more leaves on the plant, the bigger and tastier the bulb. By planting the cloves in the fall, the plants can establish roots and get a head start. Leaves then grow in the crisp, short days of spring, and the new garlic bulbs develop as days lengthen and temperatures climb. For this reason, (and because gardening in October is usually preferable to being outdoors in February), it is best to plant your garlic now.

Can't I just buy garlic?

Garlic is not just the standard variety available at the grocery store. In fact, there are hundreds of unique varieties. They vary in flavor (from pungent and spicy to mild and sweet), appearance (from purple to silver), and climate preferences.

There are two main types of garlic — soft-neck and hard-neck. In general, soft-neck garlic is best suited for warmer climates, and hard-neck garlic can bear and indeed prefers a colder winter season. To reduce the risk of disease, it is best to start your garlic from a reputable seed supplier rather than store-bought cloves. Though you may initially invest around $15 a pound for garlic from a seed supplier, it is a one-time investment and will yield more varied and plentiful results than simply using grocery-store garlic.

Best of all possible soils

Garlic does best in soil that is enriched with organic matter. Plant bulbs 3 to 4 inches deep and in rows 5 or 6 inches apart. Plant them sometime before the first hard frost in your area, so that roots have time to develop. You can then cover the bed with either straw or shredded leaves to protect the garlic from winter cold, and sit back and relax until next summer, when your bulbs are ready for harvest and — the best part — consumption.

For more information and a list of mail order garlic suppliers, see our article Plant Now for Great Garlic.

What if someone could come to your door to sell you organic gardening products and offer demonstrations the same way a make-up sales rep could bring a catalogue and a guide to applying mascara? The Happy Gardener is a three-year-old company that does just that. By giving demonstrations and lectures at community events and garden shows as well as private parties, Happy Gardener distributors do more than just push a product: they inform their customers about the benefits of organic gardening.

This month, the Happy Gardener is a part of the Forbes.com Boost Your Business Contest, which will award $100,000 to one deserving business to help it expand.

Mother Earth Living spoke with Annette Pelliccio, founder of the Happy Gardener, about her (pardon the pun) grass-roots approach to sustainable living and organic gardening education.

Q: The direct sales model of your business (like those used by Avon and the Pampered Chef) facilitates conversation and education between distributor and customer. Why is education so important in organic gardening?

A: Most Americans do not realize that the average product used to fertilize their lawn is detrimental to the groundwater, wild life and community around them. The average person still doesn't know about organic alternatives; why would you change and use something that's more Earth-friendly if you didn't know it was out there? Our distributors can offer that information to their customers.

Q: How can people already practicing organic gardening benefit from your company?

A: We supply people with easy and affordable organics. I've been an organic gardener for 15 years and I used to have to do a lot of mixing and measuring myself; our products eliminate that problem. We also offer instruction in birding and composting, it's not just pest control and gardening. In addition, we offer them a way to have a part-time or full-time career opportunity in a career they're already passionate about.

Q: Why is organic gardening important to you personally?

A: I've always had a big vegetable garden, fruit orchard and have grown herbs. When you have children and pets and you love gardening you really start to wonder about the effects of using conventional products on the food that you growing and, in turn, feeding your family.

The Happy Gardener would use their prize money to expand their customer service department, increase sales representative training, and register their products with OMRI (Organic Measures Research Institute) so that the whole product, not just the ingredients, can be certified organic. Click here to vote for Happy Gardener and help it reach the final round of the Forbes competition. Voting ends Aug. 31.