garlic up ???

anyone lower than.... or is it higher than.... a zone 6 (essentially colder than)
that has any garlic showing.
Many of my flower bulbs are up and I expected to maybe see some garlic shoots by now.

My garlic is finally poking up, just barely, but it is growing.

I'm 5b and my garlic is up I am going to pull the straw off today and do some cleaning up in that bed.

my spot seems to have a lot of ice in the soil, hope that the bulbs did not rot there.
The rest of my garden is softening up though

Did you cover with straw or anything GWN? I know we had some nasty cold temps here, but the last week or two it's warmed up quite a bit.

I put straw everywhere, but in many areas the straw almost seems to be keeping the ground below it frozen right now.
Almost like it is insulating the ground from thawing out, if that makes sense
The areas i have pulled away the straw are thawing out now.

I have a few garlic coming up, the ones that were inside the tires..... (I had built up my potato plants last year with old tires and in the fall put a few of my garlic with in those.

It is hard learning a new lot, I am concerned that the area I planted my asparagus and garlic is perhaps overly wet.

I live on the edge of an old creek bed, in fact the road is called ancient creek lane.... ??

One of the main reasons I put a mulch or boughs over the garlic bed is to keep temperatures of the ground consistent so the bulbs are not heaved out from freezing and thawing. It is safe to take the mulch off now. I took the pine boughs off my garlic bed last week and things are really growing now. There were a few bulbs heaved out, but I just shoved them back into the ground.

Camp, I wish I would've used something besides straw. Some of the seed from it is sprouting too ARGHH!

RoOsTeR wrote:Camp, I wish I would've used something besides straw. Some of the seed from it is sprouting too ARGHH!

Oh dear! The bulbs are about an inch or two below ground, yes? use a little hand cultivator to disrupt the weed roots. That and hand weeding, until the foliage comes in should take care or it. Live and learn eh? Oh I soooo know what you are going through!

Lol. I knew better too, but I had lots of it on hand and decided to use it anyway. I got the straw out fairly easy. I then used my leaf blower to really clean out the rest of the seed and debris, then pulled the rest by hand. Every head I planted has sprouted

7a and mine is just poking through.

oh well, I am leaving town for a few days, perhaps they will poke thier little heads up if they know I am not WATCHING.......

My family loves garlic and growing it crossed my mind but I decided against it. I know it probably is not as big of a difference like there is with fresh tomatoes vs store bought but is there a difference at all? I thought it wouldn't be worth it. I thought garlic was about $1 for a bulb at the store and it keeps for a pretty good length of time. I do kind of like the idea of growing garlic and hanging one of those braided garlic deals in the kitchen that we can cut off garlic as we need it. I have heard others say that growing cilantro is not worth it because it is cheap at the store and it bolts quickly in the garden. I disagree with that because I really like cilantro and like to have some on hand whenever I want to use some while cooking and it goes bad fairly quickly. Having cilantro in the garden makes sense to me but not so much with garlic.

Tell me how I'm wrong about growing garlic. Convince me that it is worth one of my squares? I've been wrong before and I'm here to learn so set me straight.

I believe in growing my own garlic so much I planted a whole 4x6 bed full of it. I use garlic practically every night. Last year I planted 9 squares and I have enough garlic left for another 2 months. With the 4x6 will not have to buy garlic all year. Go ahead and plant a square. The least you should do is try it!

I'm not against trying garlic or almost anything else. Right now I only have 32 squares so basically garlic didn't make the cut. I do plan on adding another 4x4 and then another box that will be a 4x4 but with one of the corners cut short. I know I will have plenty of room then. Until then I don't see the advantage of growing garlic over buying it cheap from the store. If we had a supply of garlic from the garden we would use it a lot more and that is never a bad thing.

Does home grown garlic taste any better? Do you have to hang it and let it dry out; how long?

H_TX_2, yes, garlic is well worth growing yourself. (1) you can choose the flavors of varieties you plant...and there are lots of differences in garlic flavors! (2) you can plant a couple of different varieties to give you a longer season for fresh garlic (before it starts to sprout--sprouts being somewhat bitter); (3) varieties for long storage do not show up in the stores; (4) hard-neck varieties send up delicious scapes for early harvest (prepare like asparagus); (5) you will know how and where your garlic was grown (a lot of Chinese garlic can be found in your local stores--can you relate to night soil?). We've grown our own garlic for nigh on to 20 years, and always find a place for it--even in flower beds in front of the house.

home grown on your own manures beats all others hands down for not only you can cut it for a green leaf off several plants . Once you have it in a plait , you can use one or more cloves as is your want and taste .. roast garlic along side a joint of meat or a bird is great but steer clear of people who don't like it .

Grow lots of your garlic in your flower beds to give you garlic and keep various bugs such as aphids away.



I'm told that even if you buy a shop garlic from goodness knows where & plant it for yourself at harvest time , if you save a decent looking bulb or two and plant them as cloves each year , over a couple of years the garlic will be sort of native to your soil and have it's own unique flavour and aromas.

I grew store bought garlic last year in a couple of squares. It seemed to taste "fresher"..

So hubby built me this awesome 4x6 bed. Just for the garlic last fall..

I bought 4 different kinds to see what I liked.

Planted 120 bulbs. Thought maybe I'll get half.

Darn MM! I think almost all of them came up! And are almost a foot tall! IN MARCH! In zone 5a! :scratch:

Now I have some to save for seed..some for me..some for daughter..some for sister...yup I have a lot

So I have to say garlic is worth growing for me! I use it almost every day!

Since I was new to this property last year, my garlic bed is a bit chaotic, but it does appear in the past week that they are all starting to come up.
We go through SOOOO much garlic will be glad to have my own this year.
Does it do well in SFG? and how many per foot?

Apparently you are supposed to plant garlic in the fall and then it begins to grow in the spring. Would I have any success planting it in my garden now? Would I need to put it in the fridge for a short time before planting?

GWN, I put in 10 to 12 cloves per square for the smaller varieties, 8 per square for the big ones (like Chet's Italian). This past year was my first time to plant garlic in SFG beds, so I should defer to those who have more experience with SFG-grown garlic. Because the beds I used had grown tomatoes through the summer, in addition to the composts stirred in before planting, I also added bone meal.

nonna
that sounds like a great idea, to use the square feet for more crops
thanks

I think I decided to spread out the garlic this year to about 6 per square. I am hoping to get some progressively larger bulbs.

OK, so I went out to count... 5 cloves to a square.

I believe I did 9. Hmm, now I will have to go double check too
Maybe I'll grab a pic while I'm at it

I did 9 last year with reasonable success.