Sarah Dale wrote:
: Mike Lyle wrote:
: The UK is at the northern limit of the range for garlic, and it won't
: always work even if given the longest possible growing season and
: very fertile conditions. Some people and some varieties do better
: than others: only experiment will tell whether you're one of the
: champs. I'm also a little suspicious of some of the varieties they
: sell in the GCs: it's absolutely got to be a variety developed for
: this climate. There's no shame in deciding to give up and rely on the

: Personally speaking, in the 3 or 4 years I have been growing garlic here
: in extreme NW wales, I have found it to be an easy, very rewarding crop.
:
: To date I have purchased my garlic bulbs for planting from Marshalls,
: split them into cloves and planted them in the Autumn - Oct / Nov. I
: then generally ignore them except for the odd weeding session or
: occasional water, and removal of any seed head. Harvest in Jul / August
: for enough garlic to keep the average family for a year.

Ditto. I've been growing it for 12 years. Near Wakefield at just under 400
feet altitude. And not had a single problem in that time.
Maybe it matures a few weeks earlier further south. Maybe the soil type
seriously matters - I've heavy loam over clay.

To be honest I've forgotten where my bulbs came from - I've add new ones
very occasionally. I think some came from a ones I bought from a visiting
french market, some may have come from the local market. As far as I
recall, I've never bought the stuff from a GC.

Jim