Mary Mary quite contrary, how does your garlic grow?

Nonna,
I have a quick question.
Last fall I planted garlic in bed #2.
This fall can I plant garlic in the same bed or should I plant in bed #1 or bed #3? I thought I had read to rotate the garlic as you would other crops.

Tks for your help!

Dunkinjean wrote:Nonna,
I have a quick question.
Last fall I planted garlic in bed #2.
This fall can I plant garlic in the same bed or should I plant in bed #1 or bed #3? I thought I had read to rotate the garlic as you would other crops.

Tks for your help!

If you've replenished your beds with compost and replanted with other crops since then, you've basically done your crop rotation.

Rooster is correct, at least as far as I'm concerned. However, I've found a benefit to moving my garlic-raising site from year to year--if for no other reason, possibility of residual disease. Last year, after pulling up the spent tomatoes, I planted garlic. It did well, so I'm inclined to remember that and, after applying new compost, plant garlic where my tomatoes are this year. This means my garlic will be planted mid-October when I pull the tomatoes. Does this help?

Great to know Nonna. I'll be moving my garlic this year mostly because I didn't care for my placement last year, but avoiding potential residuals is a bonus too
Now, I had some garlic last year that didn't develop individual bulbs. It was all or most of my hardnecks. They are just one larger bulb like a small onion or shallot. Should I replant these and hope for better bulbs this next year?

Yes, Rooster, I'd plant 'em. After all, they are BIG cloves, right? BTW, stuffed in PapaVino's ancient wheelbarrow he converted to a flower planter, were some garlic plants (we hoped it would discourage the deer from eating the panseys). wonder of wonders, it is a variety I thought I'd lost: Chet's Italian! So I carefully harvested the bulbils at the top, and it makes my first garlic planting for next year! Yes, I know it'll take two years before we get big bulbs again, but it's worth it. Nonna

I know it'll take two years before we get big bulbs again, but it's worth it. Nonna

That is so cool Nonna.
I have been following your advice about garlic.
I bought some nice sized garlic at the farmers market with the plants of keeping them till fall. Then I ended up using a few of them and of each head AT LEAST a few cloves were rotten ALREADY.
SO I have disposed of those rotten ones (not in my compost) and am going to ONLY plant the garlic I have on order from the organic garlic farm.
Did NOT want to run the risk of what happened to you.

GWN, don't know if they can ship to you in BC, but Fillaree Farms just over the border in Washington State is a very reliable firm for garlic ordering. Lots of info on their website. Good luck with next year's crop. BTW, my favorite new garlic this year is Bavarian Purple, big cloves, great flavor. Nonna

I do not think that garlic can be transported over border.
Seeds CAN be ordered. But then again, when I am down in Washington, or Oregon I might look for some.

I think that the companies I have ordered from sound pretty good.
I am going to carefully label all the crops to make sure I know which ones I like.
I have been roasting tomatoes for DAYS NOW and it really helps to have garlic in large cloves. I went out to buy more at a local store and they only had small cloves and I thought... that is going to take forever... so I went to another store to get garlic with large cloves.'I have 40 pints of roasted tomato sauce as well as lots in the freezer, took lots of garlic though.

Thanks

Thanks Nonna and Rooster for your help!!
I will be ordering garlic soon.

Another Question Please?...

I read that garlic planted next to roses helps keep bugs off the roses. Therefore, I was thinking of planting some garlic by my rose bushes but the roses are not in Mel's mix.

Do you think it's a good idea?

Dunkinjean, I've heard the same rumor, but never tested it. However, the only growing medium I know of that really stresses garlic is heavy clay soils, which can cause it to develop disease (I'd guess 'cause it keeps the developing garlic too moist). If your roses are in good, well amended dirt, I'd say, go for it and let us know if garlic does indeed deter aphids, etc. on roses. Nonna

Nonna,

Tks for your help!

Dunkinjean: Hmmmm, wonder what roasted garlic with rose petals tastes like?

Nonna,

I guess I will find out next yr!
What are your favorite garlic plants that you grow?
Any recommendations?
Tks again.

Asking PapaVino and me our favorite garlics is like asking which of our children we like best. Each is an individual, and loved for individual reasons. So, here's a few:
Asian Tempest, particularly excellent raw flavor
Bavarian Purple, few, but big cloves (sliced thin, great in dill pickles)
Chet's Italian, wonderful baked, squeezed onto bread like butter
Chinese Pink, very early, but early trumps its quite mild flavor
Spanish Roja, smaller cloves, but flavor that stands up to Mexican and Chinese dishes

That's all I can think of off hand, we're trying a couple of different varieties this year and just beginning to rate them. Nonna

BTW, my favorite new garlic this year is Bavarian Purple, big cloves, great flavor. Nonna

Nonna, I have ordered 6 different varieties this year, both hard necks and soft necks, and I am quite excited to learn the differences between them
This year I did that with tomatoes and clearly can tell the difference between my 4 heirloom tomatoes. Even without labels I can tell which is which, so I am hoping to get there next year with garlic as well....PLUS grow enough to both eat and have enough for next years garden as well.

I am thinking that perhaps a few hundred might be enough? This year I had one hundred, but many were very small.
I clearly will be needed many more to have enough to plant in the fall.How many do you grow of each variety?

Elsewhere in the crazy world of the internet someone tells me catagorically that garlic can not only be grown from first year compact cloves , big cloves , bulbils but also from seeds similar to onion seed .

My memory banks are blank on this one can anyone refresh and give them input please? ( Where's Nona P when you need him )

GWN, we usually grow between 12 and 25 garlic plants amongst 5 or 6 varieties, so guess that comes out to around 100. Where I lose out is with the ones that make the best roasted heads, like Bulgarian Purple or Chet's Italian: doesn't take long to use them up. So I'd suggest you plant to reflect how you plan to use them. How many heads for stuffing in with pickles; how often do you want roasted garlic; how much do you use in home-created salad dressings (especially Caesar salad dressings) and marinades, etc. etc.? Where all DO you use garlic? Then plan and plant accordingly. Also, with the first year you plant a particular garlic variety, you really don't know how it will best fit in with your way of cooking and eating, so, at season's end, you may well wish you had more...or less...of that variety. After a couple of years, you'll know how much of each to plant.

Plantoid, a true garlic forms both the underground bulb comprised of from 4 to 30 cloves of garlic. Hardneck garlics will also send up scapes which form a topnot of tiny garlic cloves (called bulbils) in a mini-bulb. Softneck garlics do not form scapes.....usually. Some softnecks have been known to form a short scape, with bulbils forming half the way up the scape. Usually this is a reaction to stress of some kind. Also, a true garlic does not form seeds. That job has been taken by the onion/leek side of the family (read elephant garlic). Now, having said that, under rare, extreme conditions, some true garlics have been know to flower and set seed. But it's rare. I'd guess your source who mentioned garlic seeds was thinking of elephant garlics, which are more closely related to leeks than to true garlic. Does this help, or do I need help down from this soap box? Nonna

thanks NONNA
It just seems like you must run out. I have already almost run out because I have used SO many making my roasted tomatoes for canning.

SO I need more

So, GWN, which variety tasted best when canning the tomatoes? If I were you, I'd sure save and/or buy more of that variety because it's one you use most. For us, we loved getting the Chinese Pink to dig about 3 weeks before any other variety, so for 3 weeks it was a favorite. But then others with more pronounced flavor showed up, and our favorites changed. This fall, we will plant around 12 cloves of Chinese Pink, but 30 cloves of Bavarian Purple, and as many big cloves as possible of Asian Tempest (very flavorful). I've also ordered a new batch of Chesnok Red, a hard-neck variety we forgot to plant a couple of years ago, but remember as being a good producer for us. Also ordered a smaller amount of Inchelium Red, a softneck that makes a pretty braid for gift giving. All in all, around 100 cloves will be planted as soon as the current tomatoes in the west long bed are finished and removed. So, what have you decided? Nonna

But then others with more pronounced flavor showed up, and our favorites changed.

fickle ....us garlic lovers.
I do not know the names of any of the garlic I grew last year, they were a hodge podge...
I got several heads of SUSAN.......... a hardneck that is the one that I used in much of my tomato sauces.

I will tell you in a week which ones I ordered. WHen they get here...
I really need to be a better record keeper.
We eat garlic almost every night. Chesnok Red, now that sounds like a great name.
We will be in Oregon in October so perhaps on our way down we could stop in Washington at the place you suggested.

NPV ,
You and I share the same soapbox / podium ... thanks for the confirmation .

It's funny how some folks on some internet forums elsewhere get shirty when you ask probing questions that shake their insecure world to the ground.

I keep reading and rereading this thread. I purchased one Bulgarian Purple head at the Agricultural Fair and don't want to botch it up.

As I read it, I plant the cloves individually when I remove the tomato plants? In the same spot? It'll be close to frost by then. Is that a good idea?

CC

I discussed garlic planting with a garlic vendor at a farmers market locally (and we are not too far apart). He told me to plant on Halloween and that is my plan.