Leaving onion to seed - are they ready ?

[Forage420]

I left some garlic of different varities to seed.

Can anyone tell me when the seed are ready to harvest? I've never done this before

[Mark_Riga]

As long as the bees etc buzz around, they should be ready in the autumn - when they contain black seeds like in the packets of onions you buy.

I've saved leeks seeds but never garlic or onion, mainly because I plant cloves for garlic (save the biggest bulbs for next year, these are already in the shed for planting again in September) and generally buy sets for onions. I've left a few leeks this year to set seed and will be harvesting in autumn. Probably before first frosts I'll dig the plants up and put them somewhere to dry out and keep dry. I'll probably remove the seeds from the heads when I want to sow them in early spring.

With garlic, you might want to sow them in the autumn depending on the variety, I would be interested on how you get on with them. But as you have several varieties, they will likely interbreed - which isn't necessarily bad but you won't know 100% what they are.

For leeks Laurence D. Hills suggests they need staking for support the heavy flower heads and to cut these off in October leaving to dry till December. "The stem should have started tto turn yellow before cutting with a foot of stem".

For Onion seed, he again stresses the need for staking. He says, "By the end of September, the pods should be fully grown...and when the seeds are black, the heads shoud be cut off with 18inches of stem" again hang to dry.
He doesn't detail garlic seed saving but would be similar to these.
He does caution though that raising two kinds of leeks in the same garden is asking for crossing.

[Jay-ell]

Are you talking about onion or garlic as they are slightly different?

Onions produce seeds whilst garlic can produce bulbils instead of (or as well as) seed.

Elephant garlic is different to garlic as it's actually a leek which will produce flowers but doesn't always produce much viable seed. It can be coaxed to producing bulbils by shaving it.

Here's a site about garlic seed
Garlic Analecta: Growing Garlic From True Seed

[Zelenina]

Onions and garlic are different. With onions the petals of each of the little flowers that make up the flower head die off and the centre of each little flower forms a 3-cornered seed pod instead. These develop and change from green to papery whitish, and gradually dry out. When the first seed pod or two have opened and you can see black seeds inside them, you can harvest the whole heads and finish drying them indoors, then shake the seeds out when all the pods have opened.

Garlic on the other hand doesn't usually produce any seeds. What looks like a flower bud opens and instead of flowers there is a head full of little bulbils. These can be planted to grow more garlic, but it takes a couple of years for them to reach full size.

It's more usual to grow garlic by saving the best few bulbs until planting time in autumn or spring and then separating the cloves and planting them individually. Each clove should grow and split up to make a whole bulb.

Some experimental plant-breeding gardeners have managed to persuade garlic to produce real seeds by picking off all the bulbils from a head. Some varieties will then occasionally produce some flowers and seeds. But you'd need a lot of patience and enthusiasm to do it.

[Snadger]

Onions and garlic are different. With onions the petals of each of the little flowers that make up the flower head die off and the centre of each little flower forms a 3-cornered seed pod instead. These develop and change from green to papery whitish, and gradually dry out. When the first seed pod or two have opened and you can see black seeds inside them, you can harvest the whole heads and finish drying them indoors, then shake the seeds out when all the pods have opened.

Garlic on the other hand doesn't usually produce any seeds. What looks like a flower bud opens and instead of flowers there is a head full of little bulbils. These can be planted to grow more garlic, but it takes a couple of years for them to reach full size.

It's more usual to grow garlic by saving the best few bulbs until planting time in autumn or spring and then separating the cloves and planting them individually. Each clove should grow and split up to make a whole bulb.

Some experimental plant-breeding gardeners have managed to persuade garlic to produce real seeds by picking off all the bulbils from a head. Some varieties will then occasionally produce some flowers and seeds. But you'd need a lot of patience and enthusiasm to do it.

I usually go in the opposite direction with leeks, ie shave off half the flowers to stimulate them to grow bulbils!

[Forage420]

Thank you all for the very valuable feedback on this.

Sorry I have not been especially clear.

The veg that are producing these heads are:

elephant garlic
stuttgart giant onions
& some (what look like onion from the year before).

Looking carefully I don't appear to have more than one variety of each type of plant.

I'll take a few more photos tonight and post them up.

[Jay-ell]

So none of the plants are garlic.

Elephant Garlic is a leek. As it's now flowered it's diverted energy away from the roots into the flower so the bulb is going to be smaller. It's best if you nip off the scapes before the form large flower buds and open but since it is now in full bloom theres 2 things

Enjoy the large pompom of a flowerhead. When this has done the flowers wilt and die you may see small seeds forming. Once these are ready take the flower stalk, cut it off and put it in a paper bag - shake the seeds out. This seeds may or may not be viable - I haven't been able to grow any from seed, YMMV.

Shave the flowers off - this involves cutting off each individual floret (NOT the entire flower stalk) - the leek will panic and start to form small top setting bulbs in the head. Once the stem falls over (late autumn) they can be cut off and planted out.

Either way the new plants will take a year or two to form a head of elephant garlic - in the first year it will form a monobulb which in the second or third year will form a proper head with cloves.

As for the Elephant Garlic plant itself - it's already put a lot of effort into producing the flower that it won't have as much reserves therefore the head will be smaller. It will also have produced some "corms" these are small bulbs hanging off the bottom which often become detached when lifting the bulb. These may grow into plants next year, the following year or even the year after that which will have a monobulb at the end. Keep an eye out each year for these rogue elephants and dig them up and transplant them to a nursery bed somewhere. These also will develop monobulbs and corms, but later in the season.

[Deano's "Diggin It"]

Being "Basic" here!

Seem's they would be long time coming into fruition! and again you are not gunna guarantee it will strike as the Mother plant!

For the cost of buying a few bulbs from a reputable company which to be honest is very minimal!

Really don't think it would be worth the hassle!

[Jay-ell]

At the moment going rate is about £1 for a single elephant garlic clove (yes Clove, not Head). Each clove will grow into a head with around 4 cloves. Each shaved flower can give 6-12 top sets.

At the minute because it's flowered the E.G. bulb won't be as large as normally expected, possible as small as a regular garlic bulb. It'll survive and should grow again next year. It depends if you want to use this opportunity to invest in the future.

I've a bunch of monobulb that grew this year from top sets from one of last years plants. That plant didn't split and sent up a single set of leaves this year. It's also flowering again.

I've also about 30 monobulbs grown from the little corms at the bottom of the heads. These mono bulbs usually grow into heads the second year unless really small or the weather/soil is not so good so thats £30 worth of starters not including all the cloves from the 30 heads (that'll be about 100+) some of which will be kept back for next years crop.

All these came from 6 cloves 2 years ago (when they were cheaper than todays rate) because I've been growing on the corms and top sets as well as the cloves. Remember that I've also been eating a lot of the cloves during that time as well.

This year the plants where still popping up from where I grew them last year and the year before so I'm in the position of having weeds potentially worth £1 each - I wish the rest of my weeds had the same value.