Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi all,
I planted some garlic at the end of Feb and it was all looking fine till this week when suddenly they have either flopped over or those that have remained upright appear to be developing a seed or flower type thing. Are they ready for harvesting or has something gone badly wrong?
Any help would be appreciated.
Caroline

Dont worry nothing has gone wrong, what I do is break off the developing flower head and wait till the leaves start turning brown. They are then ready to pull.

My garlic has started to flop everywhere, so I'm waiting a while before harvesting, but what I noticed is that I've not a little 'mini garlic' growing up the stem! It's just a few cloves but I thought it was a bit odd - that I have the main bulb, then a few random cloves in the stem!

I'll have to wait until harvesting time to see if the bulbs with normal stems are bigger than the ones with cloves stashed in the stems!

Anyone else had this before?

Slug can you post us a picture?

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Shortie

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children; one of these is roots, the other wings" - Hodding Carter

Hi Slug, just pulled mine today and noticed the same thing on some of them. From pulling have noticed these shoots are coming from individual cloves on the outside of the bulb. Only a few are like this, they all look ok

Yes Slug someone wrote about it recently. They had pulled the little garlic off for cooking with and I think they were called scars or scraps or scrapes. I must look for the post for you.

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Sounds to me like bonus garlic really! Certainly happy if the main bulbs still turn out OK! I'll try to get a photo this evening (if it's not raining... weather looking decidedly dubious here!)

So the fact that many are lying flat on the ground doesn't matter?

Here you go Slug I have found the post. It is named Garlic Growing by Julie and is in Vegging Out on page 3. The last post was by Gardenfan on 26.6. and you want reply #13 by Maranne.

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Someone also posted that you could take the scapes off and later in autumn plant them and you get single bulbs (I think) next year.

Can't find the info though I fancied giving it a go. Anyone else trying it?

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

Hi Lesley Jay - thanks for the info on the post. I had no idea that it was actually the garlic bolting. I noticed that the bulbs which have these scapes in the neck, are in fact smaller than the bulbs with no scapes.

CarolineSonning - I left my garlic flopped on the floor for just a few days before curiosity got the better of me. Also, what started as a few flopping, turned into 'mass flopping' and they were laying all over the lawn, so I decided they had to come up. I think that you just need to make sure that the leaves are starting to go brown, then you can pull them.

I've attached a picture of my 'scapes' at the request of Shortie

SBP - do you think the scapes will give as good a bulb as if I planted 1 clove? Not sure if it's better to eat the scapes or save them for planting. Hmmm.. perhaps I'll save a few to see what happens!

Attached Thumbnails

 

Wow, I've bever seen that before! I did have a garlic bolt on me before but it did so by flowering

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Shortie

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children; one of these is roots, the other wings" - Hodding Carter

Hi Slug, if i were you i would plant proper garlic cloves. You will only be disappointed if they don't do as well as the normal ones although you could try one or two as an experiment.

Slug - I think you'll only get a single bulb but I'm not sure - I'm gonna try as there's not a lot to lose 'food-wise'!

What variety are yours, they look like ours, which are Albigensian Wight? But we didn't manage to get them in in autumn they went in in spring, they're small but perfectly formed (seperate cloves). We have some spring-planted garlic Solent Wight that look to be doing very well.

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

I have been having a google and if you plant the scapes they grow into a single clove the first year but the following year develope into normal segmented bulbs. Or you can plant them and use the green tops in stir fries, salads and pestos.

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Sounds interesting/yummy LJ.

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Manda.

"Wouldn't it be nice
For maybe an hour
To not have a care."

SBP - I have some Solent White growing at the moment which I planted in the spring. The garlic I've just pulled was my autumn sown purple garlic (I can't remember the name - I'll have to go and look at the label or the packet in the shed!

My solent White stems are looking alot smaller than my autumn sown ones, but then again, they're not looking ready to drop yet, so I'm hoping there's a bit more growing to be done yet.

Hello...I'm new to this website, but have some experience with Garlic - I think one of Slug's problem's stems from your original post - namely that the garlic was planted in February this year.

Garlic is best planted Oct-Dec and needs around 1-2 weeks of cold weather (zero to 4 degrees) to prepare the clove. Strange things can happen to the clove if it is planted later, and the Feb-Marche weather could well be to blame for your scapes.

You could also feed the bulbs with Sulpher & nitrogen, ideally Feb-April to encourage good bulb growth and a stronger/more pungent taste.

This year (Oct) I am planning to grow "German Red" & "Spanish Roja"from the new Dobies catalog

I hope that helps...

Hi Pigface51,

Thanks for the info! Strangely enough, I actually planted my purple garlic (the one with the scapes) in October last year. The Solent Wight I planted around Feb time doesn't appear to have scapes ... yet!!

I ate some of my 'green' garlic tonight. I've never had the garlic so fresh before. I must admit I didn't notice a difference in the taste as it had so many other flavours with the dinner, but I did notice the difference in skinning the cloves etc... I'm sure it tasted nicer though simply because I know it came from my garden

What's the general opinion on buying proper "for growing" garlic, rather than just using "for eating" ones from the greengrocer. I've read that the latter can introduce diseases and things, but also others that say they always use "for eating bulbs" and no problems. What's everyone's experience on this one?

This I have some accidental 'for eating' bulbs growing since some of my bulbs did not lift cleanly last year and the cloves were left behind, which then grew.

They seem to be growing OK, but not as well as my 'for growing' garlic, but then again I didn't get a great crop of the garlic last year either, so it might be the variety.

I tried 'for eating' garlic a few years ago with no success - I got the lovely green stems but then it just died back and I found nothing in the soil.

I think the reason that 'for growing' bulbs are supposed to be better is because our food is often irradiated to kill pests/bugs etc... before it's sold to the public. I believe this can stop the bulbs (in the case of garlic) from germinating properly.

I don't know if organic food is still irradiated (this radiation is harmless to people by the way...!). If not, then perhaps if you got an organic garlic it might work better.

I often wonder what makes a 'for growing' bulb any different to a 'for eating' bulb. After all, they do say you shouldn't eat the 'for growing' bulbs.... so what has been done to them to make them unfit for consumption?