Garlic harvest

[T]

My garlic harvest:

How do I make them grow bigger next time?

I know they get bigger as the bulbs I used for planting were twice this size.

Many thanks,

-T

[songbird]

plant only the largest cloves, space 8-12 inches apart, plenty of sun, good soil, regular watering, keep weeded.

not all bulbs will be large, but enough of them should be to keep replanting some larger cloves.

those look wet, so i sure hope you didn't store them all bundled up like that? they should be dried out well (cured) before bundling.

songbird

[T]

Thank you!

I thought they'd dried out. I'd better double check!

[T]

They are so dry, the wrappers crunch when you touch them.

We have around 4% humidity around here, so if they were even wet, they are not so now.

[songbird]

T wrote: ...

ok, that's good. just make sure they are fully dried on the outside before bundling as if you wrap them all together when they are wet you can get them to rot inside the bundle.

garlic here is not ready to come out yet.

songbird

[T]

Did you overwinter them?

[songbird]

they are planted in the fall. the ones i just dug up were extras i wanted to remove so i'll eat them up. the bulbs and cloves are not that big because they were growing in a clump likely started from a single dropped scape bulbulle a few years ago. there's another clump near that one i need to remove.

songbird

[T]

I my feral trough, I planted five olive sized garlic bulbs just to see how they will go feral.

I will be interesting!

[songbird]

T wrote: ...

are they a hardneck garlic?

did the bulbs have individual cloves in them or were they a single clove?

the first year for many scape bulbules will mean they grow larger but don't subdivide, the second year they often will divide and from then on you have a clump which will cycle through. so some of the cloves will increase while others will either be dormant or stay about the same size. that is why it is hard to remove once it goes off to the wild. you think you've pulled it all but there are some cloves down there hiding. so you have to dig it up and sift the soil pretty well to find them all and even then you might miss a tiny one and it will then be back the next time the weather turns cool/wet again. these plants have cunning plans for world domination.

i gave my sister some bulbules years ago and they put them on her land in southern CO (which is probably similar to what you have there for climate) and so far they are surviving, but not doing much else. i don't know how they are doing the past few years now that a gardener is staying there more of the time, perhaps they finally got fertilized and watered more or ... will have to ask. :)

:) always! life is tenacious.

songbird

[T]

They scape.

If they go wild, they will have to hae adapted to boring through concrete, as my soil around the trough is so hard it throws sparks when you try to shovel it.

I had to hack out the trough with an ax.

I am, pretty sure they will stay in the trough. And the lack of water will kill anything that decides to make a run for it!

:-)

-T

[Drew Lawson]

Sounds a lot like field onion, which has been a common weed most places that I've had a garden. Time and frustration just brought me to accept that what I dug up was "most of it." Also, unless the compost gets really hot, they'll survive that as well.

I don't *seem* to have much onion right now. Just the creeping thistle (which is mostly dying under the mulch this year -- a welcome surprise).

On topic: After last year's neglect, I believe I have reclaimed a space suitable for garlic. Hopefully I will be planting it this fall. No clue currently on varieties. I suspect one softneck and one hardneck, since I don't know what I prefer. The catalog descriptions are of limited value, since I don't know whether the grocery store garlic is "hot" or not (probably not). And if I haven't had "hot," how do I know whether I like it?

[songbird]

Drew Lawson wrote: ...

it is definitely not onion. hardneck garlic. very hot, very good.

the patch out back i've been gradually removing my mistaken scattering of bulbules eons ago is now being mowed this season because i had no time to get back to it and Mom was sick of looking at it. i'm pretty sure the garlic under there will come back next spring and for years after as bulbs can store a lot of energy. they will keep downsizing until given a chance to recover. the smaller bulbs will not survive - yet in the end we shall see what happens. i really want to plant that area next season.

yeah, mulch will help make it easier to remove it as the roots will grow in the mulch much easier than in poor subsoil, but the thistle here which is a real PITA has no trouble going down 2-3ft in the clay. i keep digging it out when it surfaces and then i track any bits of root back down as far as i can. eventually it gives up and runs out of energy but that is a challenge. cardboard layers work as mulch. persistent weeding after elimination is required here to keep it from coming back.

if you like to eat raw garlic like a slice of an apple then hot is good. :) if you like it for cooking and tend to fry it in oil and then discard the garlic because that is enough garlic flavor for you then hot is not what you are after. it depends upon what you like and what you might use it for.

songbird

[songbird]

how deep is it?

for sure you don't want water pooling there at any point, you don't care if it gets soggy and then drains, but you don't want standing water.

what is the trench full of? is it mounded above grade?

songbird

[T]

It is about four foot long and 14 inches wide. It is about 12 to 14" deep and back filled with peat moss and original dirt, plug chicken poop based fertilizer.

The trough itself does drain, but takes hours. I water every other day.

The trench is slightly below ground level so I can water and not have it run all over the place.

I have five shallots growing like crazy in it right now. This is their second feral year.

Oh and the green onion (scallions) nubs have starting growing. Go figure.

The garlic marbles are still dormant.

[T]

I love the hot stuff!

[Drew Lawson]

I was unclear (again).

I did not mean to suggest that it is onion, just that they have similar persistence.

[songbird]

Drew Lawson wrote: ...

oh, ok. :)

i made sure the first clump i took out was dried out yesterday by spreading it out on a garden sheet. made it easy to pick them back up (and the dirt that falls off 'em) when the day was done. i think only a few bulbules rolled away.

songbird

[songbird]

T wrote: ...

that may be too often, maybe twice a week would be enough or even once a week (depending upon how well the soil there holds the moisture).

:)

did you plant these recently?

the garlic here grows almost all year if given a chance. the only time it stops is right after the tops die back in the middle of the hot summer, then it will start to put out roots once there are any rains and you can see it start growing again in the fall. some winters it will stay green under the snow if there is enough snow cover. even with the ground freezing solid down well below the root zone it will still survive and come back once we get some warmer late winter/early spring days.

i'm talking about the garlic that is left in the ground. the bulbs that i lift and divide to replant or give away or eat don't get replanted until Sept/Oct so they won't do much while in cool dark storage.

songbird

[T]

Two or three weeks ago. If they come up, I would expect them to show themselves in the spring.

That is when I harvest them

Mine stays green all winter long. It is really something to behold green shoots sticking up above the snow. Gots to get me a few picture of it.

I am thinking of replanting in a few weeks of so.

Thank you!

[T]

We have 4 to 6% humidity and adiabatic drying winds. I have tested it out. If I don't water every other day, things start to badly wilt on me and I get blossom rot even on my cherry tomatoes.

Blossom rot on peppers and eggplant is pathetic looking!