Grocery store garlic?

I have an extra head of garlic from the grocery store. Anyone ever have luck with that? It's not organic, as far as I know, but seems like often enough, garlic that sits in the pantry will send out a green shoot or two.

There was a thread about this not long ago. Scroll down Beginner Vegetables until you get to "It's time to plant garlic." Based on that thread, I just planted 5 cloves of grocery store garlic, my first time ever to plant garlic. It's going to be hard to wait to see what happens!

It should work fine. Just don't save seeds from it, it is probably a hybrid. You can alwats save the cloves to replant. You will have plenty of garlic

Excellent! Thanks for the pointer to the other thread (milesdt), and for the advice (1lisac). I will give it a try.

I've grown garlic purchased from the supermarket three years in a row with great success. Choose the largest cloves to plant and eat the smaller ones. The bigger the clove you set, the larger your final head of garlic will be.

One can neve have enough garlic!

I have friends that grow successfully from grocery store garlic. It didn't work well for me. Basically, I think it just has a lot of variables, and depends on the conditions. I am growing more expensive stock this year, and can already tell a big difference in the overall greater health of the plants. Of course, I won't know for sure until next year at harvest!

We always planted garlic in a corner of the fence and forgot it. When the tops started dying down, we would dig up the cloves and replant a few for next year. It will gradually spread and take over the whole corner. If you have room this is a good way to grow it.

Sounds like a good method, Jim41. If I ever get a deep enough patch of decently draining soil, I will try it. As it is, I've got just a couple inches over rock, most places in the garden. But over years, I hope to pull out rock and soften it all up with compost and such -- at least a bed or two.

Update: I did put some garlic cloves in a couple of pots and one of them is sending out a shoot. Maybe it's sort of hit and miss, basilandbella (starting from grocery store garlic, I mean).

LiseP - have you tried putting raised beds over your rock? I have one area that has a boulder about an inch below the surface so there's no way I could pull it out. I made a mound of soil over it and planted some sweet potatoes. The sweets produced some nice tators right on top of the boulder.

This summer I went to my local Garlic Festival for the first time to learn about garlic growing. There were many hardneck varieties available to purchase and lectures on how to grow them. One overall theme was to avoid the supermarket varieties since they are grown in China, forced to grow quickly for market, and thus not hardened off properly for home growing. Thus one may find (as I do) that they sprout fairly quickly if not used promptly or begin to rot. Home grown ones should store longer since you harden them off after harvesting. One can plant the Chinese ones, of course, but I have found them to produce much smaller bulbs. If you can find local growers to purchase from you will get the right ones for your climate. I was given two bulbs last year and was amazed at the size I got! So this year I went to the Festival and bought 4 varieties of Hardneck which I planted in October. We'll see how they do. I see some have started to come up already. They will be mulched with straw in the next few days for the winter.

I am certain that there is a certain variable, but, from what I've learned from my past failures and resulting research, it might just be the variety. I live in an odd climate. It's too hot for things hardy to zone 8, and too cold for things hardy to zone 9, if that makes any sense. Garlic needs some good cold. Here, if we hit 20 degrees one night in the summer, the whole town goes to pieces.

I meant winter. I was looking outside, wishing for summer!

Here are two links that might help with info on growing garlic. One of them says something about putting in cold (the fridge) for three weeks in warmer climates. A local garden center should know who grows and sells garlic in your area or if it's possible to grow it there at all.
Actually it may still not be too late in the south to plant garlic at this point. We are told Columbus day is a good point of reference in my area.
Good luck. Think spring!

I believe I posted on the other garlic thread that I've grown "grocery store" garlic for over ten years, at least. (Quite possibly much longer than that.) I don't have trouble growing it at all, nor do I have trouble with storage of it. Grocery store garlic, more often than being one of the California strains, usually Calif White a.k.a. Calif Early or Calif Late, is a soft-neck variety, best grown in the southern areas. Gardagore, I imagine the garlic festival people you spoke with in your area are growing hardnecks, another reason for you to buy from them as hardnecks are more suitable to your area than softnecks.

As for Chinese garlic, I planted some in December 2008 (a bit late for me since I normally shoot for Thanksgiving week for garlic planting). A fellow market vendor bought a huge bag of it wholesale and gave me some of the bulbs. It grew fairly well but I noticed that many of the cloves had dark spots like larvae in them. I suppose it was considered edible but it wasn't something a farmer would want to plant for fear they could've been nematode.

Yesterday I set out garlic (Calif White) that was harvested this past June/July. Quite a few bulbs were set on weed mat next to my boxed beds all summer...I had such a big harvest that the smaller bulbs were set aside "for later". Hah! Good ol' procrastinator me ended up later being yesterday, November 30th! In spite of our temps in the upper 90's, even 100º+ for several weeks, in spite of them being in full sun all summer, in the drought then followed by rains, they eventually sprouted a couple weeks ago, still sitting where I left them on the weed mat. I divided those and set them out.

I also allow some heads of garlic to continue growing, sometimes doing so on purpose, sometimes just forgetting them in the beds. Those, too, will sprout, sending up nice top growth, producing great roots, and I will pull them up and set them out as well. I actually took pics yesterday, thinking of this thread, so will post later today, if ya'll like.

Basilandbella, now is a good time to set out your garlic cloves. And as Gardagore mentioned, a cool period is helpful ("vernalization"), especially for softnecks. Several weeks (some folks believe several months) will trick them into thinking they've seen winter. Keep in mind there are other factors concerning bulbing, i.e., daylength at the proper time, length of vernalization time, soil nutrition, etc, but overall garlic is a fairly easy crop to grow. I say go for it.

And now I see that once again I've become entirely too long-winded! Whooops!

Happy Gardening!
Shoe

Thanks, Shoe, for your usual informative posting! Since the Garlic Festival I have been looking at the grocery store garlic carefully. Virtually all I find is from China but I can imagine that being in the South you have more access to the soft neck California varieties. I said earlier in my posting that I do have some grocery store garlic growing. In fact it has become almost invasive because I didn't know anything about harvesting it at the time ( several years ago!) so have let it go. It produces abundantly, just small bulbs and doesn't last when harvested. You are correct that the hard neck does well in this climate. Still learning!!

gardagore, at one garlic festival I once went to they even had garlic ice cream! Yep, I HAD to try it! Maybe with your smaller whites you can try using them for that, eh? Might be fun to try!

Garlic from China. Yeh, that is a bane to US garlic producers, apparently barging in on their sales. However, from a report I wrote not long ago I found that California still provides about 75-85% of US garlic, unfortunately quite a bit of it goes to processing (garlic powder, garlic salt, dehydration, etc). I'll check our local grocery stores and see if they list the origin of their garlic. What I have is from saved cloves over the past years with only a few "new" bulbs purchased here and there when it is so cheap I can pass it up.

Now if I could just "grow" my own olive oil then all my stir-fry dishes would be the best I'd ever hope for! *grin

Shoe

If I remember correctly, our local gardening TV show said that garlic from China has no roots. The bottoms will be concave. So, any garlic that has roots (I assume) did not come from China.

Sometimes I see packages of several heads of garlic being sold as a unit - on the label it says from China.

Garlic wouldn't grow if it had no roots. I'm sure your radio show meant the roots were trimmed though, Honeybee. Fortunately it takes very little root to bring life into garlic. Inside each clove is the root life whether one can see any on the outside.

I wonder if it would be worth the time to have people cut the little roots off each bulb. I know I wouldn't have that kind of time. Also it seems it would allow early deterioration of the harvested garlic.

This pic is of my harvested Chinese garlic planted in '08. I know my planting stock was from China because the mesh bag it came in (a 24# wholesale bag) had the import tag on it. I would've noticed the bulbs/cloves being butchered/cut on and certainly wouldn't take the time to plant them if so.

Shoe

Here is a close-up of a couple of cloves from that garlic. See the one in the palm of my hand and notice the little brown-ness on the bottom? No roots there but that brown-ness will begat roots.

I also notice those ends are concave and wonder if that is what your radio show was referring to, Honeybee. I'll have to look more closely at some of my other garlic to compare.

Horseshoe - It's probably the USDA that doesn't allow rooted garlic into America - or perhaps some other agency. Probably to avoid forgeign pests from entering the USA.

I don't remember whether or not the TV guy said it would not grow - I only remember he said it would not have roots.

I should start writing down these things LOL

I can believe that, Honey, about theUSDA. Remember all those phyto-laws that kicked in for certain plants a while back? I'm sure something like that comes into play for veggies (and I hope here is, too).

You've got me wondering about those "concave ends" now...wondering if that is variety specific or if from cutting roots off. Could someone look at your seed garlic from another source (i.e. not China) and see if it looks like what I have shown in the first clove pic above?

And while I have your attention I gotta show ya'll something really neat! When taking pics yesterday I wondered if this garlic, which still looks edible, was beyond sowing/planting. I broke open a clove mainly to see how fresh or dry it was and Lo and Behold, inside was the life force, perfectly comfortable and just waiting its turn to perform! Pretty neat, eh?

Shoe (back out to haul/cut more firewood before I lose my daylight)

Horseshoe - the first summer (2007) I grew garlic purchased from an online vendor, and I remember muttering to myself that it looked just like what I usually purchase from the supermarket, only a great deal more expensive!

2008 - I planted garlic I purchased from the supermarket - they were pure white and grew very well. I seem to remember that they had roots.

2009 - I planted more garlic from the supermarket - they had a slight purple cast. Hubby and I agreed that we liked the taste, so I saved some of the cloves.

2010 - this year we had a great garlic harvest, and I have already set cloves for next summer's harvest.

I think what I have is a soft neck artichoke type as these sometimes have purple blotches according to this link:

http://www.garlic-central.com/varieties.html

Thanks, Honeybee...that's a great report.

My garlic gets those purple splotches, too. Very pretty, eh?

What happens with garlic is that it tends to get acclimatized to our individual areas. I think that is why I've had such great grow-outs because I've saved "seed stock" (cloves) from previous harvests for so many years. Usually, from what I understand, garlic will change its characteristics in a couple seasons and adapt to ones area.

The acclimatizing that takes place is good in one respect, perhaps not so good in another. For example, the flavor and growth habits that a garlic variety from France, for example, "Thermadrone", will be one thing but when it is grown in my North Carolina garden it will not only change flavors but growth habit, hardiness, length of days to maturity, etc. That being said, after I've paid high-dollar money for it, grew it out, saved some of my harvest for future years, am I still growing Thermadrone or something entirely different?

I suppose it could be good or bad either way. I could end up with a wonderful garlic variety that is now acclimatized to my soil, growing season, weather, etc, or I could be longing for that first year grow-out of real Thermadrone.

All in all, I'm a garlic freak and love it. I don't think I've ever had a garlic I was disappointed in. (I DO wish Elephant Garlic has a bit more flavor to it though, but then again I LOVE leeks, which it is more closely related to.)

Shoe (who really oughta be stir-frying some garlic and onion with some okra in a big black pan for supper right now!) *grin

Horseshoe - I had suspected that soil conditions could/would change the taste of vegetables, which I've always assumed accounted for the "bland" taste of store bought produce, but it had not occured to me that garlic would change it's characteristics in a couple of seasons.

Do you think other vegetables do the same thing through their seeds? In the (distant) past I tried saving seed without success, so have always purchased fresh seed each year. Before the internet I relied on seed packets from local stores, but since then have tried many vendors' seeds, always trying to find the "taste of my youth" so to speak. Today's food just doesn't have the rich flavor that it had years ago (sigh). I was born and raised in England, UK in an era when the soil was fed with compost, and the only "pesticide" was diligence in killing pests with our bare hands! I still remember my mother and I sprinkling rye flour on our vegetables late in the day, although for the life of me I don't remember why :) The inevitable rain would wash off the flour, and then we would repeat the scenario.

I still garden the same way as I did as a child, except for the rye. It doesn't rain frequently enough here in NC to wash off the dust!

"It doesn't rain frequently enough here in NC to wash off the dust!"

Boy-howdy on that! We've certainly had our share of dry spells the past few years, haven't we?

As for seed saving/veggies, etc, I haven't noticed my crops of tomatoes, beans, cucurbits, etc, changing in flavor from one year to the next, given proper growing conditions. From a post by Carolyn some time back she's mentioned that the "flavor genes" (my term) or DNA is built into the genetic make-up.

"Flavor" of vegetables is also determined by nutrition/nutrients. You can grow a squash, for example, and it'll be a squash but how flavorful it is will be dependent on the amount of nutrition/sugars in it. You may want to read up about "Brix" and how it comes into play. Basically it is the measurement of sugars in a veggie/fruit, etc, even wine! And of course, the more sugar the more flavor. To create the 'more sugar' then more nutrition to the plant is necessary. This is not to say that a bland tasting squash won't contain vitamins A or C but would certainly come into play as to how much, or rather how little, vitamin A or C would be there.

Lastly (cus here I go again getting entirely too long-winded!), keep in mind that grocery store veggies are not only too often picked before prime harvest time but are also varieties that are bred for traits other than flavor, such as ease of harvest, ability to handle shipping, hold time after harvest (slower decay/ripening), etc. When you were working that garden with your Mother as a child you were enjoying the best of the best, fresh-harvested food picked as close to its prime as possible, eaten soon thereafter, and yes, grown in nutritious soil. I can't agree with you more about how important compost and soil nutrition is; no life in the soil then it is hard to transfer life to the plants, the fruits/veggies, and then to us, eh?

That being said, coffee break is over so out and about!

Shoe (running a bit too late to go back and check for punctuation/typos.)

Horseshoe - I've often wondered about the nutrition ratings put out by the Government. If what they are rating was grown in (what I would consider to be) poor soil, would the rating be the same as if the same food crop was grown in what I would consider to the "optimum" conditions? Unless they test from various sources and compare their figures, how will they ever know?

You're correct about the rain. It's virtually non-existant during the summer, although we seem to be getting more showers in the winter.

I'll read up on "Brix"

I can only imagine they do estimates.

I do know it's been proven that fruit growing on the south sides of trees (or guess I should say the sunniest side) tend to have more vitamin C that fruit off the same tree that has grown on the not-so-sunny side. I'll see if I can find that report when I come in for the night.

And now, LiseP, we've high-jacked your garlic thread and took it down all kinds of back roads and avenues, haven't we!? Whoops...

...perhaps now we go back to the regularly scheduled program....

Shoe

No worries, Horseshoe, it's all interesting reading.

HoneybeeNC, that's good to hear about stuff growing even over rock. Yes, I do have one 4x8 raised bed and hope to have more, in time. Maybe I'll put down a few concrete blocks and make an impromptu raised bed somewhere.