Elephant garlic...can I save it?

[wifezilla]

I had elephant garlic growing in pots and it had nice long leaves coming out of it. Since it was supposed to be above freezing last night I put it in my hoop house. I have quite a few 2 liter bottles in their for heat retention AND it was SUPPOSED to be relatively nice. So of course we got a huge temperature dip. The bok choy, cabbage, etc.. are all fine but my garlic is not. The leaves are all dropped over and the whole hoop house smells like garlic so I know the cell membranes in the leaves are ruptured.

At this point do I cut off the damaged leaves and hope it sprouts again OR do I put it in the fridge for a while and make it think it is winter and then plant the bulbs after the frost danger is gone?

Elephant garlic can take 2 seasons to produce cloves so maybe the fridge thing would work???

 

[patandchickens]

Unless it's been growing in that pot a looong time, I think you had probably better just keep it in optimum growing conditions and hope it can recover. If you only just put it outside yesterday, the problem is probably more lack of hardening off than frost sensitivity per se. (And, although I have not grown elephant garlic, I know that both regular garlic and leeks are pretty frost-tolerant, so there is hope)

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[vfem]

My elephant garlic was planted outside in October, and has survived our coldest winter in over 20 years! We're had snow, ice and more SNOW!

I never covered it either, and its huge and strong and beautiful looking. I can share pictures if you would like.

I would hope your could recover, its a cool season veggie.

Elephant garlic in on the left of the bed (2 rows), and yellow onions are on the right.