A new thread for growing Garlic

[Matt.]

Planting mine tonight. Variety: Tesco 24p!

[Flummery]

Don't you just HATE it when people tell you garlic's so easy to grow? I can get it to grow - I can just never get bulbs big enough for my satisfaction. Tried Spring and Autumn and shortest day - all the old wives' stuff - still get small (but beautifully proportioned!) bulbs.

[cupcake]

Me too Flummery! Is it the part of the country or sowing on the wrong phase of the moon?

[FionaH]

Don't you just HATE it when people tell you garlic's so easy to grow? I can get it to grow - I can just never get bulbs big enough for my satisfaction. Tried Spring and Autumn and shortest day - all the old wives' stuff - still get small (but beautifully proportioned!) bulbs.

Very good point! Proof of the pudding and all that. Maybe I should have said it is easy to sprout?

[maytreefrannie]

Don't you just HATE it when people tell you garlic's so easy to grow? I can get it to grow - I can just never get bulbs big enough for my satisfaction. Tried Spring and Autumn and shortest day - all the old wives' stuff - still get small (but beautifully proportioned!) bulbs.

I used to grow it some years back and always had good results, but for the last couple of years they haven't grown beyond a few tiny bulbs and not even in any shape (the cloves don't cling in together).

Despite it all, I've started a container with some cloves down since October and am planning another to start on the shortest day - triumph of hope over experience!

[BrideXIII]

shortest day is usually 21st december, its a pagan celebration for us, and starts our '12 days' of feasting, so i will start the celebrations by planting yet more garlic cloves i am determined to get some results at least.

[nelliegemini]

shortest day is usually 21st december, its a pagan celebration for us, and starts our '12 days' of feasting, so i will start the celebrations by planting yet more garlic cloves i am determined to get some results at least.

Hmmmm 12 days eh?! Right, the perfect excuse at Weightwatchers for the next couple of weeks, I mean no offence, and hope I've caused none but could I borrow paganism for a while (no worse than just going to church for Midnight Mass surely). But I like the idea of planting the Garlic then, in the vague hope that I will get at least some bulbs with more than a single, huuuugge clove.

[BrideXIII]

Hmmmm 12 days eh?! Right, the perfect excuse at Weightwatchers for the next couple of weeks, I mean no offence, and hope I've caused none but could I borrow paganism for a while (no worse than just going to church for Midnight Mass surely). But I like the idea of planting the Garlic then, in the vague hope that I will get at least some bulbs with more than a single, huuuugge clove.

feel free to 'borrow' paganism all you like, its not so much a religion as a way of living, i don't DO gods, they don't Do me, we just kinda respect each other and keep a decent distance

and i still love midnight mass, how can such a warming beautiful experience be wrong in the eyes of anything?

[muslimgrower]

guys....


garlic need temps between 1c and 10c to initialize flowering.. otherwise they will just grow a huge stem and no garlic cloves... i have left mine outdoors even when the seedlings were submerged in the snow.. and they are doing great, i start the garlic of in a cold room indoors and as soon as i see the shoot i take them outdoors , i have now potted them in bigger containers, and they will stay outdoors till the end of the summer............


i also trimmed the roots with scissors







pic i taken today outdoors in final pots and some in troughs..

[Naga]

How long does garlic actually take to grow, is it about 10 months?

[amandaandherveg]

Is it too late/mild to plant any cloves out now? Guarnateed we'll still have frost on and off until the end of April?

[selfraising]

Hi Amanda I'm afraid I don't know the answer to this but it got me thinking (and that's a bad thing!), I'm wondering if garlic can be artificially chilled and if this would encourage it to grow like you can do with some seeds.

[Jenegade]

Don't see why you cant stick them in the fridge for a bit before planting out. But if you plant garlic now it should still get fairly cold at night - will that be enough?

My garlic are all growing well outside, both the ones planted outside and those started off inside and put out later.

[smallblueplanet]

Plant it out now by all means - if it doesn't get the requisite number of cold days to make the bulb grow as cloves then you'll just get one bulb of garlic - which isn't really a problem.

[amandaandherveg]

Got three bulbs in the fridge a la Tesco - I'll plant them out tomorrow after I pick up some plant pots from a lovely Freecycler.