Garlic bulbs in Spring?

My local farm produce store has a fairly large quantity (as in quart baskets) of garlic taken off the grocery shelf because they showed signs of shrinkage and were well sprouted, but no signs of rot. This has got to be a local zone 4 variety, but I don't really have any idea how to identify it. Can these sprouted bulbs be separated and planted sometime in the Spring? I had previously thought that garlic was planted in the Fall. They are being sold for almost a giveaway price, but a quart basket seems a huge amount. Need advice, please.

Al

I planted garlic and shallots last week.Some types may be fall only but I doubt it. Only way to know about that stuff on the store shelf is plant it and see. My bet is it will grow just fine.

Edited to say fall planting is probably a myth brought on by those having spare time in the fall and those selling the stuff wanting to get the selling season over so they can shorten the work season and get all their money for their crops sooner.

This message was edited Feb 14, 2009 1:15 PM

You could grow some of it as 'green garlic', harvested immature. This should take care of the short season problem, use up the excess since it needs less space, and give you something pretty different to eat. I haven't done this in years and have forgotten exactly what to do, but a Google search or someone here could probably tell you how.

And then you could try to grow some of it to full heads, because it might get there just fine.

Burnet

Burnet, I've got to know about this green garlic thing. It sounds good. Tell us what you remember.
Thanks
Vickie

My recollection is that it's similar to planting onion sets for scallions - you plant individual garlic cloves a good bit closer together than you would for full garlic heads, they sprout, and when they're several inches tall and green, but before they get tough and long before they even think about forming heads, you pull them and eat the green stalks, using them kindasorta like you'd use scallions. I've also seen recipes for green garlic soup.

Garlic. Mmmmm.

Burnet

Green Garlic Soup
from Chez Panisse Vegetables
As we researched recipes and information for our Garlic article we stumbled upon recipes for green garlic. Much of the information we gathered came from a newsletter called Food & Farm notes written by Terra Brockman. Terra's brother is Henry Brockman who is proprietor of an organic farm (Henry's Farm) in Illinois that produces over 500 varieties of organic produce. We thank Terra for her work and her recipe contributions.


green garlic photo by: gourmetsleuth.com
I N G R E D I E N T S
1 pound green garlic (about 8 to 10 plants)
1/2 pound Henry¹s new potatoes
2 medium onions
1/4 pound unsalted butter
Salt
2 quarts chicken or vegetable stock

I N S T R U C T I O N S
Cut the garlic into thin rounds or half-circles. Unless very tough, the lower foot or so of the stem and leaves are fine to use. Peel the potatoes and cut into 1/2-inch cubes. Peel and chop the onions into small dice. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed pot, add the onions, and cook slowly until translucent and tender. Salt, and add the garlic and potatoes. Cook these together for 5 minutes, then pour in the stock and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook the soup until the potatoes are tender. Check the seasoning. This soup can be served rustic and chunky, or puréed

Oh, that's interesting. The soup sounds like it's using unsegmented rounds of garlic, a much later stage than the scallion-like stage. So I guess "green garlic" isn't an unambiguous term. Or I'm using it wrong. :)

Sounds good. Yum.

Burnet

http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/greengarlic.htm

Green garlic has been used to refer to garlic shoots as well as the immature bulb, though more properly it should only be used to refer to the latter.

I love garlic shoots. I first ate them in a Korean restaurant. They were served with several vegetable side dishes (banchan), most of which were some variety of pickled vegetable or kim chee. It was served with a barbecued chicken dish, Dak Bulgogi.

I was hooked, but it's taken me years to figure out how to feed the addiction. The final spur was when that Korean restaurant closed and cut off my supply.

Thanks for all your help folks. I would have never thought "green garlic", but the idea sounds good. Maybe this is worth a try!

Al