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Anyone else grow their own garlic?

Wow!!!  Nice bulb sizes.  How many did you harvest this year?  What varities?
 
I pulled my remaining garlic last week and they are all hanging up in the garage curing.  My average bulb size was really variable this year.  probably about 15% large ( > 3" diameter), 60% medium ( > 2-3" diameter), and 25 % small.  I also lost about 10% of my harvest due to rot and other issues.  But overall I'm pretty happy with my harvest, since I've got a good amount of garlic to make it through the year :)
 
I tried garlic this year and did it all wrong! Failed miserably (as did my onions - I harvested maybe 3 onions out of almost 100 planted in various locations! They all just...died). Lost most of them to rot, deer (she trod all over them and broke a couple), and my own impatience ("Well, it looks almost like they said it would!"). I did manage to get a couple teeny tiny garlics, but it wasn't enough to make me happy. I'm determined to try again next year. I'll research this time, rather than just pick up some garlic and drop it in the ground on a whim. 
 
This clove is from a bulb from last year's harvest.  The bulb had three cloves, all about the same size.  This clove weighed in at 2 oz
 
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turbo said:
Wow!!!  Nice bulb sizes.  How many did you harvest this year?  What varities?
 
I pulled my remaining garlic last week and they are all hanging up in the garage curing.  My average bulb size was really variable this year.  probably about 15% large ( > 3" diameter), 60% medium ( > 2-3" diameter), and 25 % small.  I also lost about 10% of my harvest due to rot and other issues.  But overall I'm pretty happy with my harvest, since I've got a good amount of garlic to make it through the year :)
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thanks. Variety is one I have been working on for years I call brickyard. Hardneck porcelain variety, very spicy and sweet. 
 
Hey all,
 
I want to grow garlic indoors. I have an indoor greenhouse that I built to grow peppers and I would love to throw a couple pots with garlic between my peppers. Has anyone had success doing this? Everything I have read indicates that you'll only get a few garlic chutes from the effort but no bulbs, but I would love to get bulbs! In reading this thread, it appears I'd have more luck with softneck garlic. If anyone has ideas/experience/success with this, I would appreciate the input!!!
 
I had some planted in 2 gallon pots outside, and while they sprouted, the greens quickly died off and I was left with nothing. I live in an apartment so I don't have the ability to grow anything in a garden. I have a feeling it was because there wasn't enough drainage but I can't be sure :/
 
Garlic is looking good everyone.  I managed to get none in the ground last fall.  Didn't get my beds ready in time, actually 
I was a bit lazy.  Wasted my music garlic, but did plant a few gray shallots.  I have an order in again for music, never 
tried it before and Spanish Roja, along with some Dutch Yellow Shallots.  This time I'll have my beds ready.
 
When is a good time to get your garlic in the ground? I'm watching my tomato plants start to give up the ghost and thinking that the bed would look lovely with onion and garlic and perhaps spinach over the winter - when should I start, and is there a good place to get garlic from (local nursery, online, etc)?
 
Garlic loves the cold.  Plant your garlic 3-4 weeks before your first frost, and if your climate doesn't freeze, plant last week of Nov / first week of Dec.   Also, garlic will harvest mid to late July, so its not that feasible to use a garlic bed for summer crops.
 
turbo said:
Garlic loves the cold.  Plant your garlic 3-4 weeks before your first frost, and if your climate doesn't freeze, plant last week of Nov / first week of Dec.   Also, garlic will harvest mid to late July, so its not that feasible to use a garlic bed for summer crops.
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I plant onions and garlic down one edge of the bed and everything else in the middle - garlic and onions can stay in the ground while everything else comes out and is replaced by the summer veggies.
 
Damnit I picked up garlic to seed too soon XD Got too excited at a local garlic festival
 
Would planting in the next month be a total dunce move?
 
As well, ended up buying Russian Red twice, so there'll be lots of that next year :rofl:
 
I would definitely NOT plant next month, unless you lived in upper Alaska.  Your seed should be fine though.  Just put it in a dark cool place for the next few months and plant 3-4 weeks before your first scheduled frost
 
Thanks, just came to the same conclusion as well via Googlepedia. One of the bags are separated cloves, with some loose/cracked skins. Probably best to just eat the weak. I can't see what good would have come from planting them regardless of if it was time or not, seems like an open invitation to infection. Now as for why I bought separated in the first place... XD
 
Charger said:
Since you guys seem to know a bit about garlic, does anyone know what kind this one is? I absolutely love it, but the packs it is sold in never really tell much apart from that most seem to call it chinese or asian. It is a single uncompartmented clove with lots of fragrance and oil but lacking the bad-mouth-characteristics that normally make it a no-go when working. Sizes range from 1.5 cm to almost 3 cm on some cloves.
 
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This is called a 'round' in the garlic trade. To produce them, you harvest fully matured 'bulbils' (small bulbs borne aerially, at the top of the flower stalk -- they emerge and grow visible as the sterile blooms fade). They are genetically identjcal to the parent, and not true seeds. Think 'clone', 'cutting', or 'clove'.

Sow them out in screened soil, ideally. The bulbils from a Continental Hardneck (ie.: the varieties "Music" and "Polish Jenn" are about appleseed-sized, and may take 2 years to reach the marketable size for 'rounds'.
Those from Rocambole Hardnecks are about chickpea-sized, and reach marketable size in one year.
If you plant a 'round', you get a bulb - and usually a bigger one than most cloves produce.

The flavor and fragrance of the 'rounds' you ate would be due to the variety of garlic, not the fact that it was grown as a round. Spare a handful of those rounds as seedstock, and see what you grow.
Be prepared for weirdly contorted flowerstalks and large topsets with abnormally large quantities of bulbils -- some Asian hardnecks have growth habits that differ from European strains.

On another note, Continental hardnecks' bulbils are small and soft-skinned enough to stir into a pot of rice for the last 10 minutes of cooking, or add to anything cooking at a simmer or saute temperature. Mmmmm-Mmmmmm !!
 
Just scored this at the local grocery store $2.49
(Product if Mexico ) they also have some from ?
Oh dang I forgot? but was a bit smaller but yet elephant ears also... maybe Brazil? Idk anyways lol
 
What is it that makes garlic thrive, cold weather/temps?
 
it is coming into summer here so I assume it's too late in the year to grow.. ?
 
I am so new to gardening but I love it none-the-less. Seeing a plant thrive, flower, give fruit.. amazing :)
 
Yup, garlic loves cold weather, and often do better if the temps get below freezing for a month or two in the winter.  They also take about 7 - 8 months to mature, so planting in spring is way too late.  The general rule of thumb is to plant your garlic 4-5 weeks before the first frost of the winter.
 
Garlic Update: 2014 Harvest / 2015 Planted
 
I harvested my 2014 garlic in late June.  I has pretty poor harvest rates, about 62% of what I planted.  I realized I did several things wrong during the 2014 season, and am changing things up a bit for 2015.
 
For grins I decided to plant a cover crop in the garlic bed just after harvest so it wouldn't be sitting idle with bare exposed soil for the rest of summer and fall.  I planted a mix of winter rye and red clover, with the intention to hand turn the cover crop into the soil about 5 weeks before planting.  That was stupid.  I didn't realize how deep and thick rye roots get.  They created a super dense mass 6" deep, so when I tried hand turning the rye under, it pulled 6" of soil and roots up with it.  And it was so dense you couldn't pull it apart.  
 
I did a bit of reading and rye is especially good for breaking up tough ground.  I can see why now.  I ended up having to rent a tiller and till the living crap out of the garden bed to break it all up and really work the cover crop into the soil.  Next year, if I plant a cover crop, it'll be red clover only.
 
I planted my 2015 garlic last weekend consisting of a total of 120 cloves.  Here is the breakdown:
 
Romanian Red - 10 cloves
Inchelium Red - 20 cloves
Lorz Italian - 30 cloves
Island Star - 15 cloves
Island Rocambole - 15 cloves
Basque Turban - 17 cloves
Asian Tempest - 13 cloves
 
I'm still trying to figure out what varieties work well in my area.  It doesn't get too cold in the winter, rarely under freezing, and it rains a lot (Seattle).
 
Last year I covered the planted bed with a 3" layer of fresh cut grass, topped with a 3" layer of shredded leaves.  Because of all the rain, that cover compacted down pretty dense and it was hard for the garlic to push its way through.  This year I covered the planted bed with 6 inches of straw, which shouldn't compress down so dense. 
 
all my garlic I planted has 6 - 12 inch looking green onions. They actually taste pretty good and I'm thinking about using them in my sauces. I'll upload a couple pics tomorrow.
 
Here is a pic of my garlic so far.  The Basque Turban is really taking off (taller ones on the far right), and the Asian Tempest is just starting to poke out of the ground (they are that empty space to the right of the Basque Turban).
 
I made a HUGE mistake back in October.  I went a got a bale of straw and laid down a 6 inch bed of straw over the garlic, as an over-winter mulch.  And then it proceeded to rain for the next month and all the wheat seeds still in the straw started to germinate.  By mid November I had 4" of fresh wheat growing on top of my garlic.  So I had to pull all the straw off, then weed the entire bed of all straw that germinated.  That really sucked. 
 
Turns out there is a kind of hey called salt marsh hey which is the preferred hey for over-winter mulching.  Its preferred because its grown in salt marshes and the seeds require a high saline content to germinate and grow.  Oh well, next year...
 
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