Garlic Questions

Everything I've read says garlic does best planted in the fall. It can be planted in the spring, but expect smaller bulbs.

Last fall, some of mine "flowered". I don't remember the correct name for that. I ended up with about 200 of those tiny cloves, 1/4 to 1/2" long.

My questions are: Am I understanding this correctly? I plant the garlic this spring (both regular size pieces and these tiny ones), I pull them this fall, then cure for a few days, seperate the cloves and plant the seperated pieces, leaving them in the ground till next summer? I can also harvest some of the larger cloves over this summer (but they will be on the small side)? Will these tiny ones get any size to them this summer, or is planting them a waste of time?

It is my understanding that garlic is a winter crop, planted in the fall, harvested before summer's heat. But I'm in Phoenix where we have blast furnace type heat in summer. In Kentucky YMMV.

There's some good info here:

http://www.garlicfarm.ca/growing-garlic.htm

HTH.

Mary, thank you....what a nice website!

Mary, that is a very informative website -- thanks for sharing it!

msrobin -- I've planted the little topset bulbs before; you can use the sprouts for "green garlic", somewhat like chives, or they should form a larger bulb (probably not a head of individual cloves) that you can use, or you can replant them in the fall and next year should get the actual "heads" with multiple cloves. I have by far had the best luck with planting it in the fall (basically the same as planting tulips or daffodils) and then harvesting it the next year. This past year mine was ready to dig in mid August; if you don't already know this, be sure to dig it up while there are still a couple of green leaves (not like onions, where you can wait until the tops are all dried up), or there won't be any "wrappers" around the heads and you'll have a bunch of loose garlic cloves. (Can you tell I'm speaking from experience?!)

Weedwhacker, thank you for elaborating on the harvesting info.

My intention last year was to increase my garlic "seeds", so I let about dozen develope scapes and the rest I seperated into individual cloves. I have about 500 cloves to plant now, so should be plenty to get started for my new CSA garden.

I didn't remember that it was better to plant it in the fall, so didn't plant this past fall, but I sure will next fall.

Msrobin I remember horseshoe saying he goes to the grocery store and picks out the heads with the largest cloves. He says you get bigger heads if you start with larger cloves. It worked great for me last year and once again I planted last October. My tops look good. They weren't ready until mid May last time but this winter has been so cold, they might take longer.

Twiggy, I didn't read that, but thought that would be the case. Figured if I planted these itty-bitty pieces this spring, then seperated them and replanted those cloves this next fall, that by the following summer, I should have better sized bulbs. I'm not so concerned with the size, because I'll have plenty overall for the few members that I'll have. Unless there's a major difference is taste, between the medium size and large size?

I'll probably let only a few develope scapes. The website above stated that these are good sauted and I want to try that.

Frostweed has grown garlic for years. Last year at the N. Texas RU, she gave everyone in attendance a little snack size Ziploc baggie full of garlic bulbs and bulbets (the very small cloves of garlic). I planted mine last October. The larger, regular size bulbs will be ready to harvest this year. The smaller ones in 2 years. The larger bulbs have already sprouted and are doing great. One of the smaller ones has sprouted. The rest should sprout this spring.

Here's a link to her DG Garlic journal on growing garlic.

http://davesgarden.com/community/blogs/t/frostweed/4151/

This pic was taken at the end of December last year.

Stephanie, thanks! That was great info, too.

You're welcome! Glad I could help.

Frostweeds garlic is truly inspirational. I love it that she is in my zone and I can just copycat. Thanks for posting that stephanie. I planted a paltry 24 cloves for this year. I meant to get back and plant that many more but something got in the way. For those of us in 8b that don't have that wonderful soil, now is the time to start regular feeding because as the weather warms garlic and onions really start bulking up.

Wow, I guess I really messed up.. I planted the whole bulb when I planted my garlic instead of breaking it up into cloves. I knew something didn't seem quite right when I was doing it. I was asking myself why I would plant a garlic bulb just to grow a garlic bulb, but I still did it. I guess I will just let them go and see what happens since they aren't taking up much space. Just when I think I am getting the hang of this gardening thing I manage to screw it up again!

Well, you never know what will happen!

RATFOOD, no worries, we have all made gardening mistakes. LOL! You might just have huge bulbs this fall to break apart and replant! :)

Ratfood Do you raise snakes? By your name I was wondering as we always have some Boas or Pythons and are raising rats for them. I hear their poop is good fertilizer.

Deanna, Raising snakes: Nope, not on purpose.... Last year one invaded my garden and assassinated "Sam" my horny toad but that is a different thread in a different place, and just brings back terrible memories of a summer that went oh so wrong. On that note, I am scared of snakes, roaches, and most things that can breathe underwater. But I love the soil, the hot peppers, and if you folks ever teach me the correct way to grow them, I will love the fresh garlic too. Cheers........

Hello, I'm jumping in here because I grow a fair amount of garlic too. I usually plant in the Fall and harvest in early to mid July. In my region, I can plant soft neck garlic (the kind that do not flower) in the late Winter (about right now).

Ratfood, it may not be to late for the garlic bub you planted to separate into each plant that will grow from the cloves in the bulb. You could look to see how tall your sprouts are. If they are still fairly small, you can dig them up, carefully separate, and re-plant each one about 6 inches apart and you'll get that many more new bulbs this Summer. Otherwise, they will grow all squished together and your bulbs will be kind of small and oddly shaped.

Good luck with all your garlic growing. I love it, and it makes a great gift for family and friends.

Ratfood this may be your great success story. I think Maury has a great idea. All the onion family and garlics are really tough.

RIP Sam...

I so remember the Sam thread - how sad. But look at the bright side RATFOOD - he made your garden a better place. I'm hoping all Sam's friends and relatives take up residence in your garden this year...

OK folks I gave it a shot....I split up all the regular garlic and I didn't break the roots even though they were pretty entwined (is that a word?) so's I think they are going to be ok... Time will tell. Then I ran into a problem... I planted some elephant garlic and I dug one of those up, wow those roots were pretty impressive. Anyways the garlic looks like 1 whole piece, no cloves at all. So I just planted it again and hoped for the best. Does this make any sense at all? It seems the more I learn the stupider I get..... Go figure. I guess if it was easy it wouldn't be no fun, right?

Good job on the regular garlic. Don't know anything about elephant garlic.

Another good link: http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/growing.htm

Wow! Great site! Thank you

Two years ago I found a really "spicy" tasting garlic in the local supermarket, so I saved the largest cloves and planted them in that year's fall. They grew well and I harvested many cloves last summer. I then saved the largest cloves and set them last fall. Dispite the terrible winter we've been having, they seem to be holding up. I'm really looking foward to this summer's garlic harvest.

When planting garlic cloves, I suggest you set them around the same time as daffodils need to be set in your area.