Advice needed please.

[Dianaalice]

Hi you knowledgeable people!

someone gave me about 20 cloves of elephant garlic today, first question is; will it be OK to plant them in about two or three weeks time ('cause I haven't got the bed dug and ready yet) also, they have already split the bulb into cloves and have taken all the papery outside off so the cloves are real smooth.

Will the cloves still be OK to plant? With there being quite a lot of them I don't want to chance them all not taking.

Thanks.

[skeggijon]

As for planting in two or three weeks time, that's about the right time to plant. In fact I'd say you could get away with even later.
It's certainly not usual to remove the paper layers before planting. I don't honestly know how much this would affect the cloves keeping, but since its already been done, there's nothing lost by trying.

[Scarlet]

I'm not sure on taking that final layer off as I've always left it on but I don't think it would make much difference. Although if you've got the time I'd get them all started in pots now, they will start putting on a little growth.

[Feral007]

Thought the idea was plant the garlic on the shortest day of the year, and harvest on the longest?
Although I'd harvest when the leaves are browning and falling off, as I couldn't find about a third of the beggars last summer, and they self grew this year.

They started themselves off earlier than that saying, so I'll have early and late garlic.

[Scarlet]

I think planting on the shortest day is a little late. They need time to get their feet in the ground and a little top growth to take them through Winter. I've grown giant garlic for years and the biggest crops I've had are from a September sowing, which is recommended by the garlic farm. All my other garlic gets planted out in October, this year I bough an earlier planting variety for sowing in September - early purple white, most of the other varieties are for an Oct& Nov sowing and then there's the later variety Lautrec white for December. I've tried spring planting garlic, it's not for me, I find the cloves to small and fiddly.

As for harvesting, I've lost a few if I've left it too late too but they've often given me a crop the following year but I aim to dig mine up when the leaves are still there.