Mary Mary quite contrary, how does your garlic grow?

yolos wrote:Windmere - I don't know enough about garlic to answer your question but I am having a heck of a time drying my garlic.  They are on the back screened-in porch with two ceiling fans running but the humidity is so bad I am not sure they will ever dry.  The garlicy smell is much less now so if they do not dry in the next week I may bring them inside and put a dehumidifier next to them.  What about putting them in the dehydrator (whole) for a bit??

I have mine hanging off a couple bar stools in our kitchen.  We don't have as much humidity in the house because of the A/C.  I don't have a dehydrator, but I'm wondering if putting them in a low temp oven for a while might work ok.  You've got me thinking on that one.  I might try a few just to test my idea.

In November last year I planted all this years garlic crop in open full sun beds .
 
I've had various degrees of size in previous years . I'd been wondering about the depth I was putting them in the beds so I made a simple planting gauge/dibber stick  from a   stump of broom stick marked at the two inches below ground with red insulation tape the bottom edge of the tape being a measured 2 inches up from the end of the dibber. 
 I used my planting masks to set the hole in the garlic pattern and the dibber to put them all 2 " down at the base of the clove and sprinkled  new MM over the filled holes .

Three days ago I decided to harvest my garlic as the tops had started to turn yellow and the plants were wanting to lay down . Before harvesting I had a grope down in the bed around a couple of the bulbs and found them decent sizes .
 
The results are very good all the pink/purple white soft neck garlic was about 1 " to 1 & 1/4 " dia and all the white garlic was 1 & 1/2" to to 2 " in diameter .

 Do remember folks that garlic " Goes native " , so what may work well in one location might be quite different in another place elsewhere in the world .

Would my crop have continued to grow till the summer solstice  ?  I doubt it , as the tops said harvest me now .

WOW this is quite the long forum thread!  There must be tons of good information about growing garlic which I will have to wade through.

As Autumn approaches I'm thinking I should try to grow some garlic in my SFG.  I have no idea how to do it so will have to do some reading. It must grow well in my area (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) because there is an annual garlic festival in a nearby village.

http://carpfair.ca/events/event/15th-annual-garlic-festival/


This link provides a good explanation of planting, mulching and harvesting.

http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=4aa80fb2-5cf9-4a8f-b111-5b2829748f67

Can't wait to try it.

TD, you'll be amazed at how easy it is. I plant mine on Halloween. I finally figured out last year that they need to be watered at the same time as the rest of the SFG instead of less often, which is what I did the first year.

boffer wrote:
In October, I planted one square of garlic in each of 14 boxes.  The leaves are developing at different rates in different boxes; noticeable, but not dramatic differences.  

What is dramatically different, is the slower growth in boxes that got a bit of extra heat early in the year: two boxes in my greenhouse, and a couple of TT's with heated MM.  I'm real curious to see how well they bulb up, usually in late June/early July for me.

Boffer, assuming you've harvest your garlic by now, what were the results? I've been thinking about planting in different boxes this year.

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:

boffer wrote:
In October, I planted one square of garlic in each of 14 boxes.  The leaves are developing at different rates in different boxes; noticeable, but not dramatic differences. ...

Boffer, assuming you've harvest your garlic by now, what were the results?  I've been thinking about planting in different boxes this year.
CC

The picture shows the biggest and smallest; most were in between. A wide mouth pint jar for size reference.  



This the second season of planting an unknown hardneck variety that I got from the farmers' market.  I planted 5 per square all on the same day.  Growth varied per box, and harvest was over a 3 week period,  when the leaves were about 3/4 brown.

My only conclusion is that  the  extra heat provided by hoop/green houses or heated MM didn't grow bigger bulbs.  The biggest bulbs came from the boxes that get the least sun, where I grow most of my cool crops.  They were the last to be harvested.  

The age of the MM varied from new to 8 years, but I couldn't discern  a pattern where that made a difference.  Not in the garlic, nor other crops that I planted in multiple boxes.

boffer wrote:
My only conclusion is that  the  extra heat provided by hoop/green houses or heated MM  didn't grow bigger bulbs.  The biggest bulbs came from the boxes that get the least sun, where I grow most of my cool crops.  They were the last to be harvested.  

Huh. Very very interesting. I would love to plant the garlic in a bed with less sun and save the sunnier beds for other things that need it. But this year I will keep this in mind as I plant in different boxes, and report the results next year.

CC

PS Dang, Boffer...that's a huge garlic on that wide mouth!

CC, this was the first year that I planted 5/sq rather than 9. I don't know if that made a difference or not.

Next year, I'll plant two squares per box, one at 5 and one at 9, to see if it makes a difference.

I've only done 4 & 5 per square, staggered. I still get smallish bulbs.

I dug my garlic August 8th. I had removed the soaker hose from their bed 2-3 weeks earlier. Yesterday I trimmed and brushed them off and put the good bulbs in a burlap sack to hang in the mud room. There was 80 bulbs varying in size from .5oz to 4.7oz. The biggest bulbs just barely fit within the diameter of a wide mouth canning jar (great reference, boffer).

This bed had been in potatoes and broccoli last year. There were a couple potatoes plants from potatoes I missed. I got a nice meals worth of tubers as well. BUT there was one plant in the back that when I dug down there were no tubers and all the garlic around it had basal rot. I put those 20 bulbs aside for fast use. I threw some of the soil from that area over the fence to the sheep pen.

I had deep mulched that bed as usual with hay but not cleared the mulch off in the spring. This is the second year I have not pulled it off and let it rot in place. It seems to do a good job feeding the garlic in the spring. It is the only feeding the garlic get. Could it be the source of the basal rot? Or was it that this was a cool wet spring? Or was that potato harboring something?

I will wait a couple more weeks and then look through my bag of good bulbs and see how they are doing. I am hoping to find no more bulbs with signs of the rot. Then I can separate the best looking bulbs and wait until planting time. If there seems the rot was spread further than I think now I better order new stock. Which would be a bummer, I got these from a friend a number of years ago.

My garlic this year was very weird, super cold winter here in central Ohio, rainy Spring, Summer hot and cold spells, too much rain, I suppose I should be happy for any garlic. I planted around 125, got around 120, sizes ranged from 3 inches to 1 inch, very strange year with odd looking results.  I planted all German Red and the wrappers were often oddly colored from other years.  Suppose I was spoiled from other years. Anyway, here it is. 
 Weird Looking --

LM,

I've been wondering lately how you and your garden have been.

My garlic and onions were smaller than usual this year.

Nice!

Looks great.to me.

camprn wrote:Looks great.to me.

+1

Looking good ...

Looks good to me too!!

Thanks to everyone for your replies. Almost all the wrappers have a darker color this year instead of nice white wrappers with reddish/purple stripes as in other years.  These look rough to me. Maybe the extra muddy soil conditions stained these.  I really don't know the reason.
The most important thing is the taste and ability to keep nice large ones for replanting.

llama momma wrote:Thanks to everyone for your replies. Almost all the wrappers have a darker color this year instead of nice white wrappers with reddish/purple stripes as in other years.  These look rough to me. Maybe the extra muddy soil conditions stained these.  I really don't know the reason.
The most important thing is the taste and ability to keep nice large ones for replanting.

I see what you mean and noticed it right away. The staining thought is a good one. Did you have a lot of coffee and /or tea in your compost this year?

CC
That is an interesting idea.  Yes I had a lot of coffee grounds in the compost. Wouldn't be surprised if it was over 100 pounds spread among 4 wooden pallet composting heaps.  Maybe that caused the staining.

I know I stress over freshly planted things too much, I cant help my self.  Watching our first attempt at garlic is kinda bothersome.  I read that it is slow growing and figured I'd have fun fretting over it but this is weird.  We worked and prepared our lil bed and planted the garlic toes in a 4 to the foot pattern like we showed on our blog.

True to my form I have been checking on it several times a day every since.  Pulling the few weeds and watering when needed.   Well something weird happened that has me all concerned again.  on one corner in 2 adjacent squares 6 garlic chutes jumped up one of witch is already 4 inches tall and the whole rest of the bed is empty cept for the errant weed.  I guess its just something else for me to fret over and one of the things I enjoy about gardening.  I just have to be careful.  In years past I have given up on no show okra and planted again stressed for a while and again.  Only to find 3 or 4 plants growing per spot.  Prolly wouldn't be a good thing for this stinkin slow poke garlic so I'll impatiently waIT SOME MORRE!!!!!

It is coming a good ole south Louisiana soaking rain.  like this right now. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBLPMU5_hjg

Wouldn't ya know it we had dragged the hose out yesterday evening and spend a couple hours watering and swatting skeeters.

That rain looks so refreshing and cleansing. Pulling out the hose was a guarantee it would rain! The greatest thing that could happen here would be rain. Could I ask why you only plant 4 garlic per square? Are they a very large garlic? The bed looks nice and deep and it seems it would support 9/square.

We thought of putting more but our ag center recomended 6" spacing.  We will see how this goes and retry next year it was a first attempt.  Learn as ya go I guess 9 seems awful tight though.  All our beds are old fashoned and are 12 inches high.  It works best for us.

Today its coming a nice long soaking down poor.  That aughta get those slow poke garlics to peek out of the ground.  I supose it isnt too late to stick some more in.  I may try putting one in the middle of each grid That would put one in the middle of each sq foot and one on the strings in the middle and add more.  If it stops flooding today or tomorrow I may just do that.