Garlic

I've just got the last of the garlic in. About a thousand bulbs I guess. This should see us through the year with a bit of excess. Nearly filled up the maincrop garden with garlic though (will have to start a new garden!).

I planted about half Purple Italian and half Giant Russian. What's your favourite?

Good books on garlic if anyone's interested are:

Garlic and Friends by Penny Woodward and
Growing Great Garlic: The Definitive Guide for Organic Gardeners and Small Farmers by Ron L. Engeland

We garden on a tiny scale. Our entire backyard is about 40x 80 feet. When I want to grow garlic, I pick up a couple of bulbs at the grocery store. Usually softneck is all you can find. Oct. is the best time to plant them here.

I enjoyed reading A Garlic Testament by Stanley Crawford. The book is not only about how he grows garlic as a cash crop. It tells the story of how he built his house from homemade adobe brick.

I've just harvested the garlic that was planted back in May. I don't know what variety it was, it wasn't specifically labeled at the garden centre, it was simply called "Grow your own garlic". The garlic tastes terrific but the bulbs are rather small. Any hints on growing bigger garlic?

I have a similar problem with the brown onions; taste great but are rather small. Do they need to be fed up more while growing, and with what? The watering is fairly regular so I don't think that is a problem though the bed is well raised and the soil is fairly porous. They certainly don't suffer from wet feet.

I don't know where you are located, but garlic needs a really long season and where I am the only way to get decent-sized bulbs is to plant in the fall and leave them in over the winter so they get a head start. Basically means a year in the ground.

Onions again need a long season (although not as long as garlic) so plant as early as possible. I generally plant sets, not seed, because the seed takes too long unless you start it indoors (or just want scallions). I never have much luck with full size onions because of onion maggots.

I was wondering what would happen if I left it in the ground all year. I pulled them because the top had started dying back, although it's only just starting summer over here and nowhere near autumn, which is when they suggest harvesting. I will have to try again this season.

I might leave a handful of the onions in over winter and see what happens to them. If nothing else, they might produce those lovely flowers.

Hi there all.

Of course you can leave garlic in the ground all year!
You just have to get it in the right spot. There's pros and cons though read on.

I grow a semi-commercial crop every season here. I usually plant two varieties - Wild Russian(or Elephant Garlic) and Purple Italian with the first rains in May. Some other local growers plant in April. The commercial growers and the books say harvest before flowering. Some cut off the flower heads. I do neither, I like the fuller flavour of it left in the ground for longer and I think it lasts longer too. I harvest in January (hottest part of summer here). If I leave it too long though the shallower planted bulbs seem to get attacked by cutworms and lawn beetles (we don't worry too much about it - we just eat those first). I get such a good crop normally I don't care about pests and diseases - it's very, very minor.

The crop I planted as a natural farming experiment about 10 years ago under the paulownia tree is still there! I just grab a few now and then to plant around the farm under other trees or in herb rows in the orchard. The russian garlic was a few years ago still a declared weed by the agriculture department ( they said it tainted cows milk - which it probably did - but then why didn't they just pull it out and eat it!). I started growing it semi-commercially and since then they must have had a rethink - pretty soon it was all the rage in every supermarket in Perth. Ha, the sweet garlicky smell of victory!

Thought I'd resurrect this thread, as I've just found this group, and our garlic went in the ground last weekend (I'm in the UK). A friend (who's a bit of a veggie growing guru) reckons you should plant on midwinter's day and harvest on midsummer's day. Anyway, only grown it once before, and that was pretty successful, so we're giving it another go this year.

I thought garlic needed to go through a cold/frost period? I'm sure I read that it should be planted in September in the UK.

The only time I tried some, in a very hot and well drained herb bed, it didn't do much.

We planted at a similar time of year last time, and got a surprisingly good crop. Being in London, a decent frost is never guaranteed (last three years notwithstanding...). And the veggie bed it was in has been generally pretty unproductive in the past (speak not of the leek disaster...). I've just taken out the eucalyptus tree that was growing by it (and presumably grabbing all of the goodness), so finger crossed for generally better results this year!

Leek disaster? Do speak!

Anyway, I don't think garlic actually needs freezing (because they grow tons of it in California) just a really long growing season, so in cold climates to get enough time it has to be planted in the fall, because by the time the ground is workable in the spring it's too late.

I'm trying fall-planted garlic here (Edmonton, Alberta) for the first time. I've tried spring planting but the results have been underwhelming.

Well... We sowed the leeks in seed trays with teeny little compartments, in a mini greenhouse. They came up... and didn't get much bigger than a rather undernourished-looking grass stem. We probably should have planted them on sooner than we did, but you live and learn. Anyway, eventually we stuck them in the veg bed anyway. They might have got very slightly bigger in the months that followed, but not so as you'd really notice... Still, we're giving them another go this year!

Then there was the cauliflower which produced the most pathetic heads you've ever seen, and the tiny wrinkled beetroot - I'm blaming the eucalyptus for that (and maybe forgetting to do much feeding, oops). We've had more luck with onions, peas, parsnips and carrots (even if most of the latter fed the snails rather than us).

It's still all a bit of an experiment - we've only been at it properly (for rather half-arsed values of "properly") for a couple of years, so we're still finding out what works for us :-)

Garlic is often put in the fridge for a couple of weeks prior to planting to give it the proper chilling period.

What a useful tip! Thank you!