Garlic seeds?

[Incy]

This was my first year growing garlic and I have been very pleased with the results.
I did however have a large number bolt. I dried these like the others and have now discovered that the flower heads have produced what can only be described as mini cloves. Are these garlic seeds? If I plant them will they grow into proper garlic?
Any advice from more experienced grapes would be very gratefully received.

[gojiberry]

I know it can be done with leeks, and a lot of champion growers use this method of propagation. The little bulbs are called pips. Not sure if your will grow as they have been dried, usually the plant is left to grow and the pips taken off and planted up straight away.They are then kept growing in a greenhouse during the winter and planted out next spring.

Ian

[Incy]

Ok then I will give it a go. Thanks gojiberry

[Shadylane]

It's perfectly normal for hard neck garlic to produce a flower head - they're not bolting just doing what they're suppposed to . Some eat the flower shoot (called a scape) - I have - fried in a little oil, very nice.

I planted some of the wee bulbils last year just for the laugh and they produced very tiny bulbs not much bigger than a large clove. I spent ages yesterday peeling the sods ready for pickling. I think I read somewhere that it takes 3 years for a bulbil to grow into a decent size bulb. Not sure how that would work and whether it meant to leave it three years in the ground or that the third generation of cloves from that bulb would produce decent size bulbs. I'm thinking the latter. In any case have a go, can't hurt

[Incy]

Sounds like it could be a fun experiment shadylane and as I have just got a new plot I will have plenty of space to put it to the test.

[Two_Sheds]

This was my first year growing garlic

So what did you plant, softneck or hardneck? (supermarket garlic is softneck, the one in the pic is hardneck, showing the scape)

[Shadylane]

Do soft necks ever produce scapes? Last year I thought mine were but it turned out they were hard necks.

[Incy]

I thought they were softnecks but I had 2 varieties and these were the ones I swapped with a friend so they could have been hardnecks. The bulbs were noticeably smaller than the other variety if that helps...

[Two_Sheds]

Hardnecks tend to have bigger, fewer cloves than softnecks

[Shadylane]

I thought they were softnecks but I had 2 varieties and these were the ones I swapped with a friend so they could have been hardnecks. The bulbs were noticeably smaller than the other variety if that helps...

Well my hard necks last year were a lot smaller than the soft necks. It's easy to tell the difference, the hard necks have an erm.. hard neck The soft necks are much more pliable and easier to plait/string.

[realfood]

I grew porcelain hardneck garlic last year and they had very large cloves.