(another in the "moron growing..." series. Anyone here long enough to
remember the "Moron growing basil" thread in rec.gardens long before the
re-org?)

Anyhow. Last winter snow arrived so early and stayed so long that I
didn't get to separate my garlic and replant. Now I have clumps of
garlic. Should I pull them up and separate now or let them continue to
grow? I'm more interested in harvesting this batch rather than
propagating for next year.

Also, does anyone have any tips on growing larger bulbs? My garlic
always ends up rather small no matter what I plant (i.e. sprouted
supermarket versus garlic intended for planting).

At least I can finally walk into the garden without sinking to my knees!

Mary

On Sat, 19 Apr 2003 11:12:15 -0400, you wrote:


Anyhow. Last winter snow arrived so early and stayed so long that I
didn't get to separate my garlic and replant. Now I have clumps of
garlic.

You should pull apart and separate and re-plant immediately. They will
likely do better than you expect. Plant all the excess close together and
use for "green garlic," like scallions but garlicky.

Also, does anyone have any tips on growing larger bulbs?

I've got some stuff on my personal page in the .sig below.
Briefly, garlic has the worst of both worlds:
Lousy competitor and heavy feeder. Keep it well-weeded and/or mulched,
supply enough water if your season is dry. Cut off the scapes to put all
the energy into the bulb.
If you give them lots of chemical nitrogen in the earlier foliage growing
phase, and plenty of moisture when the bulbs are forming you'll get big
bulbs. Lousy insipid garlic, but big bulbs.

I'm biased, if you can't tell...


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at www.albany.net/~gwoods
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1200' elevation. NY WO G

Gary Woods wrote:

You should pull apart and separate and re-plant immediately. They will
likely do better than you expect. Plant all the excess close together and
use for "green garlic," like scallions but garlicky.

Ok, got the most promising clumps and separated and replanted. Now I
understand the urgency -- the largest clumps were difficult to separate
without serious damage. But most I was able to gently divide. Some
went in a pot for my mom's garden.

Briefly, garlic has the worst of both worlds:
Lousy competitor and heavy feeder. Keep it well-weeded and/or mulched,
supply enough water if your season is dry. Cut off the scapes to put all
the energy into the bulb.

We use plenty of organic matter here (that we grow very well due to the
equine manure-o-matics we keep).

If you give them lots of chemical nitrogen in the earlier foliage growing
phase, and plenty of moisture when the bulbs are forming you'll get big
bulbs. Lousy insipid garlic, but big bulbs.

I'm biased, if you can't tell...

That's ok. I'm just hoping for something that actually resembles a bulb
instead of just a slightly larger clove. Huge is not what I'm after,
but tasty will do just fine. I see now after the separation process
that I did have a few good bulbs but I just didn't get to harvest them.

Thanks for the advice!

Mary



Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at www.albany.net/~gwoods
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1200' elevation. NY WO G

Gary Woods wrote:
On Sat, 19 Apr 2003 11:12:15 -0400, you wrote:
snip
Briefly, garlic has the worst of both worlds:
Lousy competitor and heavy feeder. Keep it well-weeded and/or mulched,
supply enough water if your season is dry. Cut off the scapes to put all
the energy into the bulb.
If you give them lots of chemical nitrogen in the earlier foliage growing
phase, and plenty of moisture when the bulbs are forming you'll get big
bulbs. Lousy insipid garlic, but big bulbs.

I'm biased, if you can't tell...


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at www.albany.net/~gwoods
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1200' elevation. NY WO G


Good advice. Otherwise, I wouldn't plant supermarket garlic
personally. I'm lucky enough to have a hugh garlic festival here in
the Mid Hudson Valley of NY and get my growing garlic from local
farms. I usually do German Red, and German White and one "experiment".

They are hardback varieties and give semi-large results. Not as big as
elephant obviously but a pretty good size.

For those who may be interested, the festival is always the third
weekend in September in Saugraties, NY. It draws a LOT of people (I
think around 50,000 last fall) so I'd advise going early.

--
Steve

Steve Calvin wrote:
snip

Good advice. Otherwise, I wouldn't plant supermarket garlic personally.
I'm lucky enough to have a hugh garlic festival here in the Mid Hudson
Valley of NY and get my growing garlic from local farms. I usually do
German Red, and German White and one "experiment".

They are hardback varieties and give semi-large results. Not as big as
elephant obviously but a pretty good size.

For those who may be interested, the festival is always the third
weekend in September in Saugraties, NY. It draws a LOT of people (I
think around 50,000 last fall) so I'd advise going early.


Make that hardNECK varieties...

--
Steve

Steve Calvin wrote:

For those who may be interested, the festival is always the third
weekend in September in Saugraties, NY. It draws a LOT of people (I
think around 50,000 last fall) so I'd advise going early.

Self included. I think of it as my annual Hajj.


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at www.albany.net/~gwoods
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1200' elevation. NY WO G

Steve Calvin wrote:


For those who may be interested, the festival is always the third
weekend in September in Saugraties, NY. It draws a LOT of people (I
think around 50,000 last fall) so I'd advise going early.


I had no idea! I'm in southwest CT and the out-laws live in Gardiner,
NY. I guess we'll have to make a road trip in the fall.

Thanks for the info.

Mary

Mary McHugh wrote:
Steve Calvin wrote:


For those who may be interested, the festival is always the third
weekend in September in Saugraties, NY. It draws a LOT of people (I
think around 50,000 last fall) so I'd advise going early.


I had no idea! I'm in southwest CT and the out-laws live in Gardiner,
NY. I guess we'll have to make a road trip in the fall.

Thanks for the info.

Mary


Well, let us know if you work up the nerve to try the garlic ice
cream! ;-) I haven't been able to yet, but maybe this year...

Here's a link for it: http://www.hvgf.org/

--
Steve

Plant the largest cloves and leave them in the ground and harvest the second
year. That's what they do in Italy. Don't plant too close (about a foot apart).


Regards,
June

On Sat, 19 Apr 2003 11:51:53 -0400, Gary Woods
wrote:

You should pull apart and separate and re-plant immediately. They will
likely do better than you expect. Plant all the excess close together and
use for "green garlic," like scallions but garlicky.

That's funny, I have some hardneck Italian garlic, and over the past 5
years cultivated it...last fall I gave some to an Italian friend and
he called it "green garlic" (the bulb itself). He loved it, said it
was some of the best garlic he ever had (which is really saying
something ).

Briefly, garlic has the worst of both worlds:
Lousy competitor and heavy feeder. Keep it well-weeded and/or mulched,
supply enough water if your season is dry. Cut off the scapes to put all
the energy into the bulb.

Lots of sun too. At least 4-5 hours of direct sun, which isn't too
tough early in the year, but once the trees bud-out it's pretty tough
around here.

By some miracle I haven't had a lot of trouble with weeds. What I do
is _thoroughly_ shred all the autumn leaves (particularly oak) with
the lawn mower. I then pick up neighbors' bagged leaves on the
roadside and shred those THEN I dig it into the raised beds and
plant the garlic. Then one last "bed" cover of 4-inch thick shredded
leaf mulch over winter. I've guessed this kills any annuals because
the seeds partially sprout in the hot-shredded leaves...then the hard
winter freeze summarily kills them.

Whatever the case, these preparations have made for ZERO-weeding and
nice-size bulbs the past 5 years. Now that I think about it,
everywhere else _except_ the garlic beds, weeds are a constant pain,
especially lambsquarters...I gota get more leaves Lambsquarters,
bleh, what a pain. Almost as bad as ground ivy.

In my opinion garlic is one of the easiest plants in the garden. The
investment of shredding leaves and mulching the plants in autumn is
worth the peace of mind knowing that it's ALWAYS the first plant to
rise in spring, getting a head start over all other crops. The fact
that deer never go NEAR the stuff is also a major advantage. Every
year it's planted around the perimeter of the garden and is a foot
tall long before the tree-buds sprout.

and plenty of moisture when the bulbs are forming you'll get big
bulbs. Lousy insipid garlic, but big bulbs.

I'm biased, if you can't tell...

I agree about big bulbs being weaker. Last year I had some German
Extra Hardy that got 8 hours of sunlight in brand-new heavily
manured/mulched raised beds. They stalks were 3 feet high and the
bulbs were near-baseball size, but didn't hold a candle to the power
of the slightly larger-than golf-ball sized Italian hardnecks. Maybe
GEH is simply less powerful by nature, but it was definetly different.

Dan