T wrote:
Hi All,

My garlic failed this year do to the hot weather.
My garlic patch is full of little tiny, squishy. failed
garlic bulbs.

Do I risk leaving them in place or should I dig them
up so the won't complete with the new strain (to be
determined) that I will plant in the fall?

always rotate plantings between different plant
families if you can. this helps keep diseases and
bugs from having an easy go of things and it also
uses somewhat different nutrients from the same
soil so you can stretch your amendments and $
further.

if you leave them alone it is likely you'll have
some still alive in there, they've just died back
and gone dormant.

bulb plants can somewhat adjust to arid conditions
and in some places that is actually where they may
do better because of less fungal diseases. to get to
bigger and what most people want for edible size we
pump them up with extra water and nutrients.

at the moment i have scapes on the hard neck
garlic which are pretty big themselves. the bulbs
should be ready now so i need to lift them soon.
when i planted them the cloves i put in the ground
were the largest ones and that gives them the
energy for the coming season of growing roots and
putting up leaves.


songbird