Any Garlic problems out there?

LM, those look great!

Beeeuuutiful LM. A question for you all. I got some garlic bulbs from a friend of a friend who grows it to cook with. I used most of it up, but in early May I noticed 2 bulbs sprouted before I could use it. Well anything that sprouts I can't help but plant. Never grown garlic so thought what the heck. Don't know what kind of garlic it is. Well they are growing nicely to my surprise. Will I get anything from them this year or do I leave them through the winter? Here's what they look like now. I know they should really be started in the fall, but I couldn't bring myself to throw the sprouts away.

lyndeeloo wrote:Beeeuuutiful LM. A question for you all. I got some garlic bulbs from a friend of a friend who grows it to cook with. I used most of it up, but in early May I noticed 2 bulbs sprouted before I could use it. Well anything that sprouts I can't help but plant. Never grown garlic so thought what the heck. Don't know what kind of garlic it is. Well they are growing nicely to my surprise. Will I get anything from them this year or do I leave them through the winter? Here's what they look like now. I know they should really be started in the fall, but I couldn't bring myself to throw the sprouts away.

It is my understanding that the cycle in MA is to plant on Halloween and harvest in July.   With that cycle, I can't see how yours would be ready by the fall but I guess you could just pull one before the frost and see how it is doing.  If it's nowhere near ready and you then leave the rest in all winter, what have you lost?  It's not like we can plant much of anything else here during the winter!  I would be curious what happens in either case.

Thanks cpl! I figure nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's been fun to watch them grow and for sure I'll be putting some in this Halloween!

llama momma wrote:Thanks everyone, I appreciate the nice comments.  To thoroughly dry out these big guys I put a fan on them 24/7.  Think I'll leave it on for at least the first few days then keep it on in the daytime and off at night.  Did something similar last year and was very pleased with shelf life of the bulbs. 

I look forward to pulling the others out of the ground but those look smaller and maybe need more time to bulb up.  Since losing half the harvest I'd rather give those plants every chance possible     
And if anyone has advice at this point, I'm listening!

LM, I lost all my garlic last year.  Well, I suppose there were a *few* bulbs that could have made it after I pulled out at least 2/3 of a 4x8 area that were rotten like yours, but I left the survivors in to harvest the bulbils hoping that they may be disease-free.  I kept the bulbils, ate the garlic that looked edible and chucked out the rest in the normal garbage for fear of contaminating my compost pile even though the remaining garlic looked healthy.

I started last year with fresh garlic in a new area and so far, so good.

BUT, I did want to share with you what I learned: plant mustard in any soil that you think might be contaminated by garlic-cooties and then wait a bunch of years before you plant garlic there again.

You could even throw some mustard in the affected area now as a cover-crop unless you had something else that you were planning on growing there that's in the mustard family.

HTH!

Very interesting.  I wonder where you learned of mustard kicking garlic cootie butts?   I was going to make sure no garlic went in that box for a couple years.   Thanks Molly!  So I'm curious and just found this article by Barbara Pleasant on using mustard as a soil biofumigant -- way cool btw--
I didn't know this!  ----

http://www.growveg.com/growblogpost.aspx?id=312

Wow, that is super-interesting to know. We've got lots of diseases around here. I've gotta try that!

llama momma wrote:Very interesting.  I wonder where you learned of mustard kicking garlic cootie butts?   I was going to make sure no garlic went in that box for a couple years.   Thanks Molly!  So I'm curious and just found this article by Barbara Pleasant on using mustard as a soil biofumigant -- way cool btw--
I didn't know this!  ----

http://www.growveg.com/growblogpost.aspx?id=312

I wonder how long it would take for it to decompose in our SFG boxes.  Any thoughts?

I found this website a little bit ago.  Loads of info.  I haven't read it all but I hope you find your answer there.  www.mightymustard.com   There are a couple of different varieties for different uses. Territorial seeds sells it for them too apparently.

I love eating mustard greens and always have them somewhere in my spring garden.  

Kay

llama momma wrote:I found this website a little bit ago.  Loads of info.  I haven't read it all but I hope you find your answer there.  www.mightymustard.com   There are a couple of different varieties for different uses. Territorial seeds sells it for them too apparently.

Link doesn't work for me.

Maybe try it through google?  That's how I got to it.

I got there just by typing the site name. Your link has a bunch of extraneous characters attached to it. Interesting site. Not all their stuff is up to date though. Territorial Seeds, for instance, doesn't have their mustards, though they say TS does. I'll check another source.

Sounds like a very interesting product, and better yet, an interesting idea.

territorial seed link for mighty mustard  http://www.territorialseed.com/product/Mighty_Mustard_Kodiak_Cover_Crop_Seed/new_for_spring_2014

Johnnys seeds link  
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-7298-mighty-mustard-pacific-gold.aspx


Kay

walshevak wrote:territorial seed link for mighty mustard  http://www.territorialseed.com/product/Mighty_Mustard_Kodiak_Cover_Crop_Seed/new_for_spring_2014

Johnnys seeds link  
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-7298-mighty-mustard-pacific-gold.aspx


Kay

Well that's weird, I looked on Territorial's mustards page yesterday and it wasn't there. Thanks!

Marc, it's not on their mustard page. It is listed in "Cover Crops".

Yeah I see that now, thank you. Odd.

I wonder if it would have any effect on late blight spores.

I have a question for you garlic aficionados!  I planted garlic in early spring and discovered that it wasn't getting well watered (edge of a garden not quite being reached by the sprinklers though I didn't notice until too late).  Hence I got very small bulbs.  

Can I just leave them where they are and will they grow again in the fall?

Thanks in advance for any ideas on what I should do,
audrey

Audrey, I'm picturing several little cloves all sprouting, producing clumps of garlic plants in a small area. Someone on the Forum wrote to plant the largest garlic cloves and the smallest onions.

Thanks for that cute ditty - I can remember than one :-) I think I'm just going to dig all of them up and move them to a better area anyway so I think I'll do an experiment and see what happens. Oh and thank for the recommendation on the ant issue. I have to get out there and look closely, I'll bet there are worms as I haven't been looking for them.