The great garlic experiment

[HiDelight]

I have planted garlic for at least 15 years and always have planted mid October it is my ritual and the garlic ...(I have only had one bad year that I ended up with quite a few rotten poorly formed ones) I do manage to grow some wonderful garlic! but then it is easy so I can not make any claim to fame here ..
so you may say
why fix it if it ain't broke? well this year a friend convinced me to plant half the bed in the spring!

my usual mode of operation is
raised beds
add fresh compost every year
rotate every year
lime in mid August
plant in October
do absolutely nothing else to it ..I do not even water


so this year treated the bed the same but planted half the bed in the fall and half in the spring..(I added the lime to the spring bed in late January then planted in late March).and used two types of the same kind of garlic ..both Italian hardneck varieties

they were both ready to harvest last Sunday
both were very healthy but the fall garlic was by far the stronger nicer plant all along
neither one produced scapes I have never had this happen before (anyone know why a garlic would not produce a scape? I feel cheated out of one of my favorite things!)

the bulbs on the fall plants were a third larger...better in flavor but both produced very nice bulbs this year so I am happy

my conclusion

well I will plant the bulk of my garlic in the fall for sure .as usual ..the winter cold was obviously good for the flavor and quality of the bulbs ....but I would not hesitate to plant in the spring either if I found a score on some nice garlic or if for some reason I did not plant in the fall

so hope this is interesting to someone because it sure was to me ..I will add pictures later ..for some reason pictures are always a huge project for me

does anyone have any experience in planting garlic in the spring?

does anyone want to talk about how you prepare your beds and when?

does anyone not just love garlic and all its goodness????? it is absolutely one of the most fun and easy things to grow don't you think?

and just so good for you too!!!! if everyone in the world ate garlic there would be no wars ..ok that is BS because most of the world does eat garlic and there are lots of wars

but it sounded good for a moment!

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Yes I am a garlic lover too.

This was the first year I ever got garlic scapes on my garlic. I had never eaten them before, because I had never had them grow before. Now I love garlic even more! As for why the scapes form . . . I thought it might be because our winter was so darn cold this year and then when June was so warm it shocked them into flowering? But that would not explain why you usually get them and did not this year. Weird.

 

[big brown horse]

As I have stated before, this is the first year that I have a "big girl" garden. So I am still learning from newbie mistakes. It doesn't help that I just moved up here from TX. New climate, new things to grow for the first time.

Well, I threw some garlic in the soil in the spring this year. It is all grown up, no scapes though. I'm afraid to dig one up because I figured out too late that I was supposed to plant in the fall.

I will go out there right now and pull one up and report back to ya.

I only mulched the tar out of them and that was that, no other fertilizer was needed this year.

 

[big brown horse]

Well,

I just yanked 3 huge garlic "heads" out of the ground!!! I can't believe it! My first time to grow it.

I thought it was an onion, it was so big and well, round. But I can feel individual cloves inside the skin...so I know it is garlic.

So I suppose it works! (Don't tell DrakeMaiden, but it is from grocery store bought garlic that went sprouty!)

 

[COgirl]

Ok, I put garlic in this spring, but they were looking like small green onions, so I guess they were well sprouted . I mulched them in very well with straw, they have grown taller and look healthy, no scapes. Do I wait until the tops die back to pull them or can I start yanking now?
This is a first for me, so I will try to order some garlic or at the least buy some organic at the farmers market to plant this fall.

:rainbow-sun

 

[big brown horse]

Ok, I put garlic in this spring, but they were looking like small green onions, so I guess they were well sprouted . I mulched them in very well with straw, they have grown taller and look healthy, no scapes. Do I wait until the tops die back to pull them or can I start yanking now?
This is a first for me, so I will try to order some garlic or at the least buy some organic at the farmers market to plant this fall.

:rainbow-sun

Well, I yaked the three that had the thickest stems. I did pull up one that was too little and I snuck it right back into the ground, I hope it continues to grow. My stems are already falling over, and if they are like onions, that is a sign that they are about ready.

 

[COgirl]

Oh guess I should be pulling up onions then lol!! My stems on the garlic are all still very upright, but I think I may sneak one just to see what they're doing
:rainbow-sun

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Oh, I see how it is, BBH!

 

[big brown horse]

Oh, no. Cats out of the bag now!

I will use better garlic "seeds" next fall, I promise!

 

[HiDelight]

Cogirl wait until the stems die back at least half way ..I do not let them die all the way because they tend to rot if I do that here ...also you can carefully just pull the soil away and look at them to see

BBH I have used garlic from the grocery store too shhhhhhhhhh...also when I planted blue potatoes I

ok pay $5 for certified seed potatoes and get two lousy sprouts ....or ....go to the store find some blue ones with eyes and plant them for $2/lb ????HELLOOOOOOOO!!!!


I just make sure to rotate my beds to avoid diseases

Korean markets here have fantastic garlic ..not the clones that come from China avoid those they are really bad tasting anyway

for those who live in this area http://www.chehalisgarlicfest.com/
fun little homegrown fair with dorky crafts and hay bails to sit on while you eat garlic fries and listen to very well usually awful music ...ok I feel badly saying that it is fun anyway ..they have TONS of varieties of garlic to choose from and you can take cloves and taste them to see how you like them ..I usually smell wonderful for days after ..I love raw garlic and the breath that follows is nice and germ free besides if everyone smells like these wonderful cloves who can tell?

and CoGirl rather than order google and see if you have a garlic festival near you ..you can talk to the growers and see exactly what grows well in your area..that or a farmers market and ethnic markets are all where I get my garlic for planting ...or like last year I plant my biggest cloves from the previous year

I wonder what the deal with the scapes is? are? is? hmmm what sounds better