growing elephant garlic anyone ?

[Duk21]

Re elephant garlic

Hi there

I planted 5 elephant garlic mid April and nothing is happening yet!
Am i being impatient............ should i be seeing signs yet?

duk

[Curvy Vixen]

Not sure duk21 ~ I planted mine in October last year so they are pretty well on now. Should they not be 'frosted' over the winter time so best to plant them in the autumn?

[Flummery]

Mine never split either. I may have planted them late. Not bothering this year as I have plenty of 'real' garlic. I believe elephant garlic is related more closely to leek (or did I dream that?). It doesn't taste quite like 'real' garlic to me.

[humpbacks1962]

Hi all!

I am in US Connecticut's Zone 6, and stumbled upon this question during a google search.

I planted my cloves last fall. They "slept" under my pile of fall leaves during the winter. In the spring, I removed it to find they were pale little sprouts just hurting for some sun.

I snipped off the scapes a week ago, and cooked them in various ways. My favorite is pesto. I made "sofrito" (a staple of Latino cuisine), even mixed some in hummus to make my own garlic scape hummus dip. And I started harvesting some bulbs already. All the ones I planted in the fall split beautifully. The ones I planted in the spring did not, but I still sliced and cooked them as leeks...

Moral of the story? Plant in the fall, mulch well if your zone gets too cold, and oh yes, I added some potash and bone meal early spring, so maybe it helped. My potatoes should be ready to pull in a few more weeks too, so I can't wait to make some yummi cream of potato/elephant garlic!

Wanda

[janto]

hi all i allways grow elephant garlic. i allways plant nov/dec now they are waist high. wont be long have allways taken out flowering heads. still using last years and are very good.

[TinyT]

I haven't had much luck with these. They went in February and didn't sprout until May (I was about to dig them up!). The cloves are green too .

[sallyw]

no i havent had any luck yet planted them weeks ago dug 1 up by mistake and it had a few wispy roots on it so i shoved it back in again not holding out much hope ordinary garlic doing well though cant wait to try it

[zorbizz]

first year of elephant garlic

We are in central CT, USA and planted our first elephant garlic in late October last year in raised beds, covered with grass clippings for mulch. In the midst of the spring snow they shot out of the ground and never looked back. The stalks are just over an inch in diameter very sturdy! I snapped off the flowering heads and cut them up into salads..yum! We just harvested our first one yesterday after the stalk had just fallen over, mostly green but with some yellowing leaves. We had six large cloves and 6 korms (had as in we had them for dinner today!). I was just here reading about korms and hope to get them in the ground before the skins dry, trying to get rounds from them next year, setting up a 2-year cycle of korms to rounds to huge garlic! Oh, there was some compost tilled into the raised bed before planting, and I gave them 10-10-10 twice during the growing season, once when I planted the first of my other things in April, and then again in mid May.

[MaureenHall]

I grew elephant garlic last year and saved some of the cloves which I planted this year. Last year's were a bit inconsistent - some had 6 - 7 large cloves each, some were just 1 large clove/bulb. Think I'll continue trying with my own saved cloves, but I won't be buying any more - too expensive!
Think this years are almost ready for lifting, so I'll keep you posted as to whether it's worthwhile or not.
Supermarket garlic leftovers (cloves starting to sprout) have been the best crop for me

[realfood]

Elephant garlic does best when Autumn planted, and the flower spikes are removed in the summer. Save your biggest bulbs for replanting the following year.
My notes and photos on elephant garlic are here elephant_garlic

[pipscariad]

They were a Wilkos rescue job, so I guess I'm lucky they survived at all!

The elephant garlic that I planted this spring did nothing at all - that was from Wilko's too, but not a rescue job! It was odd, as when nothing appeared I dug up the cloves and they looked fine, not mouldy or anything, just 'static', and they remained that way for ages before rotting. I was very disappointed, but will try again with some better quality (?) bulbs.

[MaureenHall]

Very disappointed with my elephant garlic this year. The tops had died down so I lifted them, they're all single cloves, no splitting at all, and only about the size of a large ordinary garlic bulb. There's a few "bulbils" with them though, so I'm planting them up straight away, 'cos I know they take ages to grow

[Headfry]

Grown Elephant garlic for the first time this year.....and it's HUGE!
weighs a ton!
think it has split into 'cloves'

question is....
What do I do with all that garlic if it is just ONE clove......heeeeeeeelp!

[Demeter]

What do I do with all that garlic if it is just ONE clove......heeeeeeeelp!

Roast it! It's much milder than normal garlic
(haven't grown it yet - but I have eaten it!)

[Gwyndy]

Tried elephant garlic last year. It grew OK but I was not impressed with the flavour. I think it is one for show and fun rather than for serious culinary use. This year I went back to Albigensian and Early Purple - excellent crop from both and great flavour.