Several weeks back, I cut the lovely, swanlike flower tops off my hardneck garlic and, because I was doing too many things at once, threw them on a bare patch of ground. Today I was harvesting nearby and decided to clean up. Well, the swan's head papery covering had come of some of the flower stalks and there was the little puff-ball I'm beginning to recognize as an onion family flower. Only rice-grain size mini-cloves were coming off the puffballs.
Can I plant them? Will they grow true?
I looked in my reference books and one said no, they're sterile. (Why would a plant bother to do all that work for nothing?) Another book said yes, but they take two years to grow.
So which is it? =)
If it matters, the variety is Music. It was planted near some softneck garlic, but I don't remember if they sent up flower stalks at the same time. Plus, the flower itself seemed to be enclosed in the papery covering.
What will happen if I plant my mini-cloves?
hardneck garlic flower Viable seed?
PatriciaS - I don't know about the garlic seeds. Some of mine set seed, too. I sprinkled the seeds around the garden, but probably the birds ate them - which is okay with me, the birds are my friends :)
In my experience, if you plant mini-cloves - you will get small garlic. Plant the large cloves - they take just as long to grow and your resulting garlic will be that much larger. Same is true for shallots and regular onions. Again, this has been my experience YMMV.
Hi HoneybeeNC!
I've done some poking around the internet and found out the mini cloves are called bulbils. There isn't much info, but it sounds like you plant them, harvest the regular sized clove (I'm assuming some little, some medium, some big), and the following season, plant the clove to grow the bulb of garlic.
It takes two seasons, but if you look at what a pound of quality seed garlic costs, it might be worth trying. Heck, I got *thousands* of the little bulbils.
If anyone has done this, please chime in. =)
i have they will grow fine just make sure they get some water paul