Cinnamon wrote:

How many bulbs will you get from each of those plants do you think Bubba?

This is garlic. One bulb per plant.

Henriette

--
Henriette Kress, AHG * * * * * * * * * * *Helsinki, Finland
Henriette's herbal homepage: http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed

Henriette Kress wrote:
Cinnamon wrote:


How many bulbs will you get from each of those plants do you think Bubba?


This is garlic. One bulb per plant.


For this year.

Split the bulbs into cloves and you will get 4-15 bulbs the next year,
depending on the number of cloves in the bulb. The year after that, lots
more. You're limited only by your growing space.

Of course, this means you can't actually eat any of the garlic since
you're saving it all for seed. Bummer.

I'm in the Albany area Gary, same as you. This is my 1st try at growing
garlic, having gotten some nice "seeds" at the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival
last Fall. I planted them last October and they are growing great so far.
Tell me, when do I harvest them??

73's, Bob



"Gary Woods" wrote in message
...
Ross Reid wrote:

Anyone really interested in growing garlic should seriously consider
purchasing a book entitled Growing Great Garlic by Ron L. Engeland.

Ron's book is fine, though with a northwest accent, as that's where he is.
I got some varieties from his farm, and most did OK in my _very_ different
climate.

Shameless plug: On my personal page in the .sig below, you'll find very
basic garlic growing info, as well as pointers to some growers. If
there's
a garlic festival you can get to, that's best of all for local
information.
I've never found a garlic grower who wasn't happy to share information at
great length...


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at www.albany.net/~gwoods
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G

Bob wrote:

I'm in the Albany area Gary, same as you. This is my 1st try at growing
garlic, having gotten some nice "seeds" at the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival
last Fall. I planted them last October and they are growing great so far.
Tell me, when do I harvest them??



Easy answer: anytime you're hungry.

In general, you can eat garlic at any stage. However, most people wait
until the bulbs have grown to their maximum size.

In Massachusetts (probably similar to the Albany area), I plant my
garlic one finger deep in late October or early November. It's a heavy
feeder, so I fertilize it moderately at that time. I mulch it with
straw, not so it doesn't freeze, but so it doesn't freeze-thaw-heave out
of the ground. The mulch keeps it frozen until the weather really warms
up for a while.

In the spring (a couple of weeks ago, although now's OK) I give it
another shot of fertilizer and go down the row looking for skips in the
shoots coming up. Sometimes the shoots get caught under the straw, so I
push it aside and expose the shoots, then push the straw back. The straw
remains in place for the summer as weed control.

Around June in my area the garlic will put up a flower stalk. It is easy
to recognize, since the leaves are flat, but the stalk is cylindrical.
Break it off before the flower opens. This forces the plant to send its
energy into the bulb rather than the flower. The stalks are edible: just
chop them up and put them in whatever you use garlic in. If you wait too
long they may get tough, but you can just peel them.

Around mid to late July in my area the leaves start turning brown. When
about 50% of the leaves are brown it's time to harvest. Starting in
early July you can pull a bulb to check on the size. If it's
satisfactory, pull more. If you leave the bulb in the ground, it will
grow to the point where the paper covering will split. Then it's harder
to clean and doesn't store as well. (However, it eats just as well).

When you pull all the garlic, place it on a table in a dry place with
good air circulation out of the direct sun and let it dry for a week or
so. Leave the tops on. If you have softneck varieties, you can braid
them at this point. Once the tops are dry, you can cut off the top
(leave an inch or more of stem) and roots and brush off the dirt.
Peeling the outer layer of paper is one way to get the dirt off. Store
in at room temperature for the winter. The optimum sprouting temperature
of garlic is 40F (your refrigerator temperature). Choose the largest and
best looking bulbs and plant them in the fall for next year.

Other considerations: Keep the plant watered. It doesn't grow well in
really wet soil, but it needs moisture to size up. When you miss a few
flowers the plant will set small bulbils on the top. You can plant them,
but they produce a fairly small plant and bulb. The best thing to do
with them is to plant them close and use the greens that come up in the
spring for cooking. If you grow other things in your garden, having a
crop that is out of the field in August makes it convenient to place a
leguminous cover crop onto the field. I use oats and hairy vetch. This
gives you some automatic fertilizer next year. By harvest time the straw
mulch has a start on decomposition, so I just turn it in to provide some
organic material in the soil. Don't turn in the hairy vetch until mid
may for best nitrogen fixation. By that time the vetch is fairly high
and you may want to mow it to chop it up before tilling. Otherwise it
will clog your tiller. Really hard to dig by hand. (the nitrogen
fixation is in the roots, but there's useful nitrogen in the leaves, so
turn them under as soon as you mow). It takes a week or two before the
area is ready for planting.

On Thu, 06 May 2004 17:29:02 -0400, Bob wrote:

I'm in the Albany area Gary, same as you. This is my 1st try at growing
garlic, having gotten some nice "seeds" at the Hudson Valley Garlic
Festival last Fall. I planted them last October and they are growing
great so far. Tell me, when do I harvest them??

73's, Bob


July, after the leaves die out. That's when I do mine, I'm in the Hudson
valley.

dps wrote in message ...
Bob wrote:


In Massachusetts (probably similar to the Albany area), I plant my
garlic one finger deep in late October or early November. It's a heavy
feeder, so I fertilize it moderately at that time. I mulch it with
straw, not so it doesn't freeze, but so it doesn't freeze-thaw-heave out
of the ground. The mulch keeps it frozen until the weather really warms
up for a while.


I read lots about this plant and that plant being heavy feeders
(tomato and garlic most notably) but I don't ever see that. Since I
grow no pulses, I do occasionally add urea to my beds (maybe each bed
got sprinkled once), and I always add some wood ash to keep them at a
decent pH (and yes, to replenish K as well as other micronutrients),
and of course most beds get two inches of various compostables every
year. In fact the beds are entirely made of compost by now. But what
do you really gain by, say, having 250 ppm of (any major nutrient) as
opposed to 150 ppm?

On 5/5/04 6:13 AM, in article
, "Ross Reid"
wrote:

"Loki" wrote:

il Tue, 4 May 2004 20:38:09 +1200, "Jeremy" ha scritto:

I not shore about your climate but the general rule of thumb for garlic is:
Sow on shortest day, Harvest on longest. (mid winter to mid summer).

Jeremy (in New Zealand)

"Taylors in Japan" wrote in message
...
I've been growing garlic in a window box planter since early last
September.
The climate is subtropical (Osaka, Japan.) I started with a clove in five
spots and now have five plants growing. My question is, when would they
be
ready to harvest? I've heard spring is ideal but just wanted to get other
opinions.

Harvest when the tops fall over. According my gardening guide.

Not a bad harvesting guide for onions but definitely wrong for garlic.
Garlic should be harvested when it still has at least five green
leaves remaining. These five green leaves turn into the paper wrappers
around the bulb. If you wait until the tops fall over there will be no
protection for the individual cloves.
Anyone really interested in growing garlic should seriously consider
purchasing a book entitled Growing Great Garlic by Ron L. Engeland.
No, I don't have any financial connection to the book.
Ross,
Ontario, Canada.
New AgCanada Zone 5b
43º19' North
80º16' West
Yes, I agree with Ross's five green leaves remaining....
As far as planting time...plant so the plant starts to grow before the
cold sets in when nothing will grow. (60 days before) Garlic hibernates over
the winter and will start to grow again when it gets warm enough. It is
important to plant fairly deep so that frozen soil does not push (heave) the
garlic to the surface during the winter. Covering with mulch, as someone has
mentioned, keeps the ground consistently frozen....
Gary
Fort Langley BC
Canada

To reply remove yoursocks...

il Tue, 11 May 2004 17:56:08 GMT, gary davis ha scritto:

Yes, I agree with Ross's five green leaves remaining....
As far as planting time...plant so the plant starts to grow before the
cold sets in when nothing will grow. (60 days before) Garlic hibernates over
the winter and will start to grow again when it gets warm enough. It is
important to plant fairly deep so that frozen soil does not push (heave) the
garlic to the surface during the winter. Covering with mulch, as someone has
mentioned, keeps the ground consistently frozen....
Gary
Fort Langley BC
Canada

Frozen soil? Brrr, we only get to -6C° air maybe once a year at
night, if that. Obviously it all depends on climate for cultivation
'rules'.

--
Cheers,
Loki [ Brevity is the soul of wit. W.Shakespeare ]

On Wed, 12 May 2004 09:03:30 +1200, Loki wrote:

il Tue, 11 May 2004 17:56:08 GMT, gary davis ha scritto:


Frozen soil? Brrr, we only get to -6C° air maybe once a year at night, if
that. Obviously it all depends on climate for cultivation 'rules'.

And also for varieties. Google for "soft neck" / "hard neck". If you live
where the climate seldom gets good and cold, I think you'll need to plant
soft neck varieties and you'll need to plant them on a different schedule
than a northern gardener.

Bill

--
http://cannaday.us (genealogy)
http://organic-earth.com (organic gardening)
Uptimes below for the machines that created / host these sites.
01:04:00 up 12 days, 10:53, 4 users, load average: 0.53, 0.29, 0.20
00:56:00 up 12 days, 8:57, 4 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

il Tue, 18 May 2004 01:07:00 -0400, Anonymous ha scritto:

On Wed, 12 May 2004 09:03:30 +1200, Loki wrote:

il Tue, 11 May 2004 17:56:08 GMT, gary davis ha scritto:


Frozen soil? Brrr, we only get to -6C° air maybe once a year at night, if
that. Obviously it all depends on climate for cultivation 'rules'.

And also for varieties. Google for "soft neck" / "hard neck". If you live
where the climate seldom gets good and cold, I think you'll need to plant
soft neck varieties and you'll need to plant them on a different schedule
than a northern gardener.

This started with a question from a person in Osaka, which was pretty
hot when I was there. Not to mention of dubious air quality.

As for soft neck and hard neck, I'd never heard these terms used
before. I just planted garlic from what I had or bought some from the
nursery. They just called them 'garlic'. They've never flowered
though.

I'll have to till my garden if I want to plant anything, it's as hard
as a rock at the moment. Unfortunately I can't hover over the soil to
weed it.

--
Cheers,
Loki [ Brevity is the soul of wit. W.Shakespeare ]

Loki said:


As for soft neck and hard neck, I'd never heard these terms used
before. I just planted garlic from what I had or bought some from the
nursery. They just called them 'garlic'. They've never flowered
though.

Soft neck, then. Hard neck generally has fewer cloves wrapped around
a hard stem, and the hard stem is the remnant of the flowering stalk.

Hardnecked garlic has a zippier flavor; softneck generally stores longer
and has smaller (and better wrapped) cloves.

--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(attributed to Don Marti)

il Tue, 18 May 2004 06:05:28 -0500, (Pat
Kiewicz) ha scritto:

Loki said:

As for soft neck and hard neck, I'd never heard these terms used
before. I just planted garlic from what I had or bought some from the
nursery. They just called them 'garlic'. They've never flowered
though.

Soft neck, then. Hard neck generally has fewer cloves wrapped around
a hard stem, and the hard stem is the remnant of the flowering stalk.

Hardnecked garlic has a zippier flavor; softneck generally stores longer
and has smaller (and better wrapped) cloves.

I've just read that elephant garlic is actually a type of leek.
--
Cheers,
Loki [ Brevity is the soul of wit. W.Shakespeare ]

Bus Driver wrote:

On Wed, 05 May 2004 13:13:57 GMT, Ross Reid wrote:


Not a bad harvesting guide for onions but definitely wrong for garlic.
Garlic should be harvested when it still has at least five green
leaves remaining. These five green leaves turn into the paper wrappers
around the bulb. If you wait until the tops fall over there will be no
protection for the individual cloves.
Anyone really interested in growing garlic should seriously consider
purchasing a book entitled Growing Great Garlic by Ron L. Engeland.
No, I don't have any financial connection to the book.
Ross,
Ontario, Canada.
New AgCanada Zone 5b
43º19' North
80º16' West

I agree.

The first couple years I grew garlic, I harvested using the "tops
down" criteria. I found the cloves to be seperated with soil in
between. I was harvesting too late, ususally around mid July.

I have an extraordinary crop this year. I estimate I'll be harvesting
late-May/early-June.

I was going to put a couple current photos on the web but I've
misplaced my camera.

I put the following on the web on 4-18.

http://users.megapath.net/~gletendre...c/DSC00040.JPG

http://users.megapath.net/~gletendre...c/DSC00039.JPG

scr
Vancouver, WA


Verrrrry purrrrdy ... what varieties are you growing? I have Ajo Rojo,
Leningrad, Metechi and California White (grocery store bulbs). Yours in
April look pretty much like mine now.

Bill