Hi All,
Now this is all over the web, but I'd rather hear it from someone I trust.
I got my garlic in the mail yesterday.
What actually is the right time?
-T
My Argentine garlic all died on me.
anytime after mid-summer works for me here, but i have planted as late as the day before the ground freezes and it still comes up in the spring.
songbird
Thank you!
When do I fertilize?
when a plant is actively growing if you're using chemferts or heavier amendments that may leach away. if you're developing good soil over time then always is the answer i think of because your fertility is also a large part of your soil community. so any organic amendments that work and add to the soil nutrients in time.
i never fertilize my garlic specifically because the worms and worm compost will stick around for several years and my garlic seems to do ok with that kind of treatment. so i may plant into the 2nd or even the 3rd year after amending. it also really depends upon how good your soil is to begin with.
songbird
Burpee's customer service said just as sprouts start to come up in the spring
And to cut off the scapes the moment they occure
Okay. We plant rocambole or Stiff Neck garlic which will produce scapes. The varieties are German Red and Russian Red.
I'm in Maine and I've planted as late as the end of November and had to dig down through 3" of frost in the ground, so essentially planted in frozen mud. The garlic came up fine.
We try to plant by the 3rd week of November, but before snow. And then we cover it with about 6" of straw which stays until the greens begin emerging through the straw and remove about 4" or so, the rest will mulch the garlic. The straw isn't to keep the garlic from freezing, but to prevent them from un-thawing and freezing again in the springtime.
As for scapes, if removed you get better size bulbs, but you can leave them on and get smaller bulbs and what they call bulbils which can be planted, but they say that can take 3 or 4 years to produce bulbs of any size.
We remove our scapes when they have circled around about 270° or 3/4 of a turn. I cut the scape stalk at the point just above the leaves below them. The flower tip seems too tough for eating, but can flavor something if you choose. The scapes, run through a food processor with additions of olive oil, Parmesan cheese, salt & a touch of lemon juice to keep its color. Then freeze the pesto in 1/2 cup jars until you want some of the best pesto you are ever going to eat, be it with pasta and such or just on crackers. Usually no nuts, but we like some pecans if we add any.
We're setting 11/11 as garlic planting day on a 6" grid. Harvest around the end of July or when the first 3 bottom leaves brown and die. Good luck!
Hi Wilson,
Thank you!
I put mine in the ground after the first freeze in October and toothpicked it to keep the neighborhood cats from crapping in the bed.
Maybe I will actually get some garlic this year.
Who'd you buy your German Red and Russian Red from?
In the spring, we have wild temperature swings. Most varieties of garlic I have tried bolt on me in May because of it.
Is your soil acidic or acid?
-T
My garlic patch tested 7.1 pH back in 10/2015. The test said I was at or above optimum and recommended I do nothing to adjust it. 'Toothpicking?' Never heard of that, but have few cats in the hood. But now the wife says she's heard of folks using plastic forks. That sounds like a tedious operation.
We bought the garlic at a local garlic festival in 2014 in Southwest Harbor, Maine - Pirates Cove Campground. Nothing was certified, but they are both definitely hard-necks and had reddish striping on the bulbs. That first fall was maybe our best year.
The straw mulch is to keep the garlic from starting too early. It keeps the beds frozen until the last frost has gone by. I have a small wooden fence about 16" high that goes around our 3' x 10' with a 2" x 8" frame sitting on gravel. Soil is clay-ish, so holds moisture pretty well.
Actually, plan to plant tomorrow as it was 28.4°F this morning and the ground will be frozen soon. Good luck!
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