Garlic Failure

[daviddevantnhisspiritwife]

I (like many other grapes) purchased some seed garlic from Wilko this year. I got 'Germidour' and decided to treat it to large modules to get it going. At the same time I planted some fat cloved Chinese garlic from the supermarket and some onion sets from Wilko - in exactly the same fashion.

All of the Chinese stuff is up, the onions look great, but, the Germidour has failed completely - all the cloves look like they are just going to rot.

Has anyone else had issue with theirs? I suspect that I have perhaps done something wrong, but, it seems odd that the onions and supermarket cloves have sprouted fine

[Hazel at the Hill]

I plant my garlic directly into the soil at about this time of year (in fact I took three bulbs to the Hill today to plant out but ran out of time), and they just sit in the soil until about February when they start to shoot.

Maybe yours are busy growing a root system? Seems funny that the supermarket ones are up, though.

[daviddevantnhisspiritwife]

Thanks Hazel. That is what I would normally do, but, the only free spot I had available at the time was where the garlic was last year. I thought I'd pop it in modules and then either transfer it or look after it in the large modules until spring.

I've had a furtle, the cells I've checked revealed off colour cloves with no sign of green - they really look like they are going to go rank. Quite a disappointment as I am normally too tight to buy seed garlic (it was cheap in the scheme of things though).

[BertieFox]

When did you buy these garlic cloves? I will only be thinking about planting my garlic over the next couple of weeks from the bulbs I harvested a month or so ago. These are completely dry and hard.

It sounds like either the garlic cloves you have purchased have some kind of rot (white rot?) or that you have put them in modules which have been far too wet and warm, especially with this warm autumn. Garlic will only start to produce roots very slowly as the winter progresses and it is a mistake to think you can get them into growth this early. They should now be in their dormant stage.

If I planted mine in modules I would not expect them to start producing roots or shoots until late December at the earliest.

[daviddevantnhisspiritwife]

Hi Bertie,

I can't recall the exact time, but, it was following a thread on here. I did not get around to doing anything with them straight away, but, they looked fine when I put them in the modules. This was a few weeks back. They have not been drenched or kept too warm and as above, the other ones are showing (albeit tips). In actual fact, with all of the rain we've been having I took special measures to ensure they did not get soaked (with a ramshackle shelter).

I am not too perturbed as I have plenty of my own from last year that I can use...

[Greenleaves]

My Germidour is all up, no watering just the moisture in the soil

[daviddevantnhisspiritwife]

Glad yours is OK Greenleaves.

[Scarlet]

the Germidour has failed completely - all the cloves look like they are just going to rot.
:

Nothing much to go wrong if you've planted them in modules. Pop one out to see if it's started throwing out roots.

[daviddevantnhisspiritwife]

The ones I furtled are doing nothing.

[Scarlet]

Oh. Buy some more

[stevejohnson53]

I planted Germador and Casablanca from Wilko in modules, 95%+ success. Sounds like you got a bad batch. Like all good gardeners I am sure you will still have recepts and packaging for a full refund, or if your owt like me they went on last bonfire or ripped up.

Good luck
Steve

[Scarlet]

I planted Germador and Casablanca from Wilko in modules, 95%+ success. Sounds like you got a bad batch. Like all good gardeners I am sure you will still have recepts and packaging for a full refund, or if your owt like me they went on last bonfire or ripped up.

Good luck
Steve

My receipts are usually found crumpled up in the bottom of my bag.
Welcome to the vine Steve, why don't you pop along to the introduce yourself thread and tell us a bit about yourself or your plot/garden. Pics are always welcome too

[Kirk]

I bought some garlic to cook and instead used a jar of minced garlic - much easier I found. About the same time I bought 2 garlics for planting at £1 each - I forget the garden centre they came from.

I prepared 2 rows for planting them in about 4-5 weeks ago and put the supermarket cloves in one and the GC ones for growing in the other.

Read this and decided to take a look, well every one from the supermarket has come up and is presently 4-6 inches tall and looking strong. They presently look bigger then the onions last year grew to.

Not a single "proper" garden centre one has shown yet, so I removed a bit of soil and looked at 2, both have given up and look like they will rot in the ground.

So the 30p each supermarket ones doing great, the £1 each GC ones will I suspect end up as dead organic material in the ground. My problem is that this is not the first time this has occurred, actually it is getting to be normal.

I do wonder if the growers pass off the poor ones to people to grow, they can always say that the grower did something wrong, whereas for consumption they are restricted by an assortment of laws preventing ones with problems getting into the food chain.

[daviddevantnhisspiritwife]

I am gonna chalk it down to experience this time, but will see if I can get some more seed garlic in the next few weeks of a different variety or from somewhere else.

Last year I did all supermarket (tesco value/asda jumbo and organic) got a good crop though most are on the small side and don't have many cloves. None the less, a great return on the investment so to speak and will keep us in garlic for a looooong time.

Thanks got the replies.