Garlic...help!!

[Egluntine]

I bought 3 garlic bulbs for planting variety "Fokyhama" and am very puzzled.

On the packet it says planting time Feb - April....harvesting time July - August.

Reading through all the advice on this forum it seems to indicate that garlic takes months to grow and my impression is that it needs to overwinter to get the bulbs to divide into cloves.

I shall plant them anyway but wondered what the more experienced garlic grower could advise.

Ta muchly.

[sewer rat]

Hi Egluntine
Haven't come across that variety before but there are varieties that are suitable for autumn planting as they need the cold to divide into cloves. There are also varieties suitable for spring planting, which do not. I can only assume that your variety is one of the latter so fret not, you will get a harvest of garlic from them. I too am growing a spring planting variety this year.

[Egluntine]

Thanks Sewer Rat.

[sewer rat]

No probs. I would add however that we both might find that our garlic cloves may produce smaller bulbs than those planted in autumn. I'll see how mine do this year and make a decision after that - but have a feeling that I'll be growing autumn planted garlic next year.

[yoanbob]

i plant the same variety in both spring and autum, the spring ones are a bit small but perfectly good, the winter ones are bigger, dont know the variety.

[NEWTO THE PLOT]

I have terrible luck with spring planted garlic have tried it twice and both times it was very small and disapointing,first time i grew garlic was autum and was fantastic,so have gone back to that this year and from what it looks at the moment i made the right choice and will stick with it in the future

[Egluntine]

I have terrible luck with spring planted garlic have tried it twice and both times it was very small and disapointing,first time i grew garlic was autum and was fantastic,so have gone back to that this year and from what it looks at the moment i made the right choice and will stick with it in the future

Thanks for that...I will plant these and see what happens, and then hope I am organised enough to plant again later in the year for overwintering.

[vicki lorraine]

I too have purchased spring planted garlic. Put it out about a fortnight ago. First time for me so will see how it goes. Wasnt ready to plant it in the Autumn so will plant some this year and compare the two.

[eskymo]

The first time I gre garlic I planted in autumn and got some massive bulbs - can't remember the variety...the next lot I planted in autumn as well but tried supermarket garlic - very disappointing results. This year I forgot to buy garlic anfd plant it last autumn, and just managed to get some last week - not sure of the variety as I bought them off ebay - they may well be supermarket stock for all I know...but I p[lanted them last week and will see how they get on - I'm going to be a bit more organised this year and plant in autumn again as that definitely gets the best results.

I didn't realise that there were two different varieties - ones to plant in autumn and ones to plant in spring - I just thought that all garlic was the same - learn something new everytime I visit here.

[roitelet]

In this neck of the woods I am told to either cut off or tie down the foliage in late May or June on Garlic so that the bulbs swell. This applies to either sort.