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Anyone else grow their own garlic?

turbo

turbo

I'm planting my seed garlic this weekend and it made me wonder how many other pepper heads grow their own garlic. 
 
Pretty much everything I do with peppers also includes garlic, so last year I tried growing garlic for the first time and had fantastic success with it.  This year I tripled my garlic garden square footage and am planting 1.5 lbs of seed garlic (70 - 90 cloves!).
 
Does anyone else here grow garlic?  What region are you in?  What varieties?  What do you do to prep your garlic bed before planting?  What do you mulch with?
 
 
I was thinking today I need to get garlic going now. This will be my first crack at it. I have a 1' by 5' raised bed I am going to fill.
 
1' by 5'...you could probably plant two rows, with 7 or 8 per row.  Is that what you were thinking?
 
I'll be trying my hand at it for the first time next season.  I'm going to be getting mine in the ground in a couple more weeks.  Haven't decided on variety yet. I'll be planting 8 cloves in 2 squares of one of my 4x4 raised square foot garden beds.  No special prep for me.  Just a 50/50 blend of Kentucky topsoil and leaf mould, mulched with hardwood bark mulch.  
 
I tried last year and let them grow the WHOLE year and a few months. When I thought I was going to harvest some awesome garlic when the leaves died back a little, there was nothing there. HUGE disappointment.
 
Garlic - the staple of any garden!
 
We'll be planting ours close to October 15-20 and harvest in July, about 2 weeks after the scapes have been cut.
 
To get the garden ready, we add llama poo and leaves, rototill it all in, plant the cloves about 4" deep by 4" apart.  We add leaves as a mulch and then filled bags of leaves on top since we have lots of freeze and thaw throughout the season.
 
Remove the bags of leaves around Feb or March and wait for the miracle of garlic.  We don't water until we plant the rest of the garden.  This past year we planted 4 rows of 20' each and saved about a row to plant the next year.
 
Hardneck - Romanian Red or Estonian Red or another Porcelain or Rocambole.
 
I like to grow garlic because it's so easy to grow.  I just ordered some music garlic, and will plant it out in a week.   I bought mine at territorial too, also
bought grey shallots from them.
 
turbo said:
1' by 5'...you could probably plant two rows, with 7 or 8 per row.  Is that what you were thinking?
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Something like that. I also have two 6x4 raised beds that will both be available in a week or so.
 
I love Garlic, grew 500 head this summer. I live in Maine and plant around nov.1st here. Depending on where you live and what variety you are growing you don't want to plat to early. There should be no above ground growth in colder climates where the ground freezes. Just want them to have enough time to send down some roots before freeze. I have been working with 2 varieties for the last 6 years that are extremely cold hardy. I use salt marsh hay or straw and only put down a very thin layer maybe 2inches after it has settled.  I started off with a thick layer of mulch but the garlic would sprout to early here and get leggy under the straw, plus it's a good place for mice and other things to hide out.  Amendments for the soil are my own compost, kelp meal, and I plant a cover crop of hairy vetch,buckwheat,winter rye mix that' get's tilled in about a week before planting. Garlic does best in rich soil with good OM that drains well IMO, but will grow in a lot of conditions. If your soil is really good, then seed stock selection and spacing is absolutely critical for large heads. You want to select the largest cloves to plant. The larger the clove planted the larger the head it can produce if conditions are right.  My garlic gets huge so I need to space 8in between cloves for optimal results.  Fish and seaweed emulsion is your friend in the spring, neptunes make a great product. I make my own compost tea as well and it really helps. any more questions just ask. 
garlic1_zpsebd858b3.jpeg

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FreeportBum, your garlic looks amazing. They are huge!
 
This weekend I planted 95 cloves from 6 different varieties; Japanese, Chesnok Red, Inchelium Red, Romanian Red, Silver White, and Lorz Italian.  I purchased the seed garlic from Filaree Farm here in Washington.  This is my second year growing garlic and I'm experimenting with different varieties to see what I like and what grows well in Seattle.  
 
The Japanese garlic was cool.  I had three bulbs, two of the bulbs had two monster sized cloves, and the third bulb had 3 cloves.  I can't wait to see how baked garlic turns out with cloves that big.
 
I prepped the garden a month ago by putting two inches of (highly decomposed) mulch down, a layer of bloodmeal for nitrogen, and then an inch of good topsoil.  Then used a garden fork to gently turn the ground about 6 inches down.  Then this weekend, after planting the cloves, I mulched with three inches of fresh cut grass.  Because it rains so much here, we have to be careful with winter mulch.  It needs to be really thin and fine so it doesn't become an impenetrable carpet of wet mush like leaves would become.
 
The nice thing about Seattle is that it doesn't get too cold, so we don't have to worry as much about planting too early or protecting the plants from a deep freeze.  Last year I didn't even put protective mulch down and the garlic sprouts were 3 inches tall by late December and I still had a good harvest in July.  We do have to make sure we plant varieties that are fairly resilient to sitting in wet dirt for 4 months straight :)
 
Here is a picture of the Japanese garlic cloves!
2j1k5ti.jpg
 
Nice garlic. I planted Spanish Roja last year, and it did great here.
I'm looking for a garlic that has good storage, so I can save some
for the next year. I think music is good storing. I'll find out next year.
 
I had about a row and a half of empty space left over so I ordered a 7th variety of garlic, Lorz Italian.  I just got it yesterday and I'll be planting 16 cloves today.  Woohoo.  I get almost as excited about growing garlic as I do peppers.
 
I was hoping to get some in the ground this year. Looks like you guys bought out territorial seed. They are fresh out of all there garlic and shallots. Any thoughts on other suppliers.
thanks
 
Scarecrw said:
I was hoping to get some in the ground this year. Looks like you guys bought out territorial seed. They are fresh out of all there garlic and shallots. Any thoughts on other suppliers.
thanks
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Tried to PM you, but your box must be full.
 
Scarecrw said:
I was hoping to get some in the ground this year. Looks like you guys bought out territorial seed. They are fresh out of all there garlic and shallots. Any thoughts on other suppliers.
thanks
Click to expand...
 
Give Filaree Farm (http://www.filareefarm.com) a look.  They have a huge selection and I think still have some seed garlic left for the season
 
If you have active farmer markets at this time of year in your area, go check them out. You might find some good ones grown in your area.
 
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