T wrote:
songbird wrote:
T wrote:
Hi All,

On my onions, shallots and garlic, when the stocks start to lose their
green and dry out, do I still keep watering them until the stocks
completely lose their green? What are the rules?

"stalks"

once they start dying back i'd ease off on
watering and stop once they reach the 1/3 die
back stage (where one third of the leaves have
gone brown).

What do you mean by "ease off"? I currently
water them once a day. I use my zukes as an
indicator. If I do not water enough, their
leaves wilt.

not water as much. since i don't know
your soils/water holding capacity or how deep
the garlic is planted and things like local
rains, i can't give you a number. i just mean
"less than before" and stop completely when
they hit the 1/3 leaves die off stage as then
they are done as far as i'm concerned and will
be lifted for harvest/curing.

if you notice that they are rotting a lot
that is probably a good sign that you are
overwatering late in their life-cycle. i
have that problem here at times because we get
rains that i can't do all that much about and
the clay soil holds moisture.

i think i have a few weeks yet before i get
to harvest the garlic.

tons of scapes now that i need to remove
because i sure don't need the garlic to spread
any more than it already is. never got back to
my project this year of digging more of them
out. too many other things going on.


songbird