T wrote:
Hi Songbird,

If I like the Trader Joe's garlic I just planted,
I was thinking of letting a few go to seed.

They are right next to my green onions. Will the
cross pollinate? They are similar families.

If they turn out to be soft neck, will they flower
and seed?

Does garlic take two years to bulb up from seed?

from seed three or more years, but of course
depending upon variety and if there are even seeds
available as many garlics now do not get seeds at
all. it's possible to find some garlics that will
bloom and get seeds but you'll have to look for them
and even if they do bloom and you do get seeds they're
not normally a very high rate of germination. it's
something talked about in places.

even from a large scape it will take several years
to get a decent sized bulb from some garlics. even
when i plant a large scape (which is huge in comparison
to a seed in terms of starting energy) the first year i
may get a single (an undifferentiated clove) or a tiny
bulb with small cloves if i were to dig it up again and
check it out. most the time i'm not planting scapes
any longer (i try to give them away to people who want
them and otherwise i chop them up and use them as worm
food or bury them deeply in a garden because i don't
really need any more garlic growing around here ).

i get large bulbs (3-5 inches in diameter) because
i plant large cloves to begin with. the small cloves
we eat.


songbird