garlic question

[lottieheaven]

Hi,

I luuuurve garlic.......music has done fantastically well this year, much better than the wights.......however a query I have is this......i planted small cloves in the spring in modules as I had no room for them anywhere and was loath to compost them (I even have planted clumps around my rose border I had so many.

With the modules they have formed larger single cloves and as they have died down I am now drying them off but can I use these to plant in the autumn for garlic to pull next year or am I better off just using them for cooking ?

I know that small cloves makes small bulbs but is there any way to 'grow on' small cloves in this kind of way to make them better for planting ?

thanks

[Kirk]

I would just use whatever you have available. Cannot say I find a great deal of advatage to planting a large clove or a smaller one. As they have come from the same bulb size is dependant on where they grew, the smaller ones are in the centre. Genetically I would expected them to be the same.

Find that reasonable preparation and adding a manure to the bed and digging that in has resulted in better and bigger garlics, immaterial of what I put in as regards size.

Last year I planted some large cloves from IoW and the result was pathetic, couldn't really say any formed a bulb, I used the "larger" ones chopped up for stir-fry, most went to the compost pile. This year I planted some from nowhere in particular and they are looking impressive and I expect some good large bulbs. The cloves for this years crop were half or less the size then the ones of last year.

[zazen999]

The Linear Legume: Why planting little shallots gives you bigger shallots...

I've found that the small single cloves that grow into round cloves without splitting don't recover and grow into big bulbs - so just eat those and use either fresh garlic or the ones that have split for your next year's 'seeds'.

[lottieheaven]

thanks both.....i'll experiment I think and see what happens....Ive got plenty thankfully