Garlic failure

[Peter Hancock]

Returning from holiday, I have found that my four varieties of garlic are, almost, a complete failure. They have some mould on them and falling out of the ground with virtually no root. Others have no bulb growth at all beneath the soil. The only exceptions are two elephant plants (out of say 10) that appear to be intact and now harvested. .They were all planted in November
Observations please.

[terrier]

Same here I'm afraid. I was going to try garlic on my plot, but there's been so many people posting of their probs with garlic, it's making me think twice. The thing that does come to mind is the sudden drop in temperature after a warm sunny start to the season and everything becoming waterlogged because of all the rain. Hey, your first post was a long time comming.

[NOG]

Its been a strange year. on our plot everyones garlic has gone to Rust and onions have been ravaged by slug and have bolted.

It due to the strange weather we have had for the over winter stuff we didn't really have one then there was a wet spell then a dry spell.

I think the poor stuff didn't know what was happening. Garlic needs a bit of frost to get it going.

I would recommend having another go. Last year we had tons of both and are still using it now.

when you plant them gve teh ground a dusting of blood, fish and bone then fake it in. push them under the soil so the mice and squerals don't dig them up and eat them then leave me...give them a weed and if it is very dry water to stop them bolting but don't water them as a matter of course.

[greenlung]

Hi - At first I thought my garlic had failed this year too and couldn't believe how damp the ground was when I harvested: I'd been watering a lot 'cos the surface was dry and cracked, but I suppose our clay soil hadn't drained as much as I'd thought.
Still, for my first attempt, 90% are fine, the others a bit mouldy or split - probably a sign that I could have harvested earlier. Think I put mine in last November too.
Did you water much ? What's your drainage like ? Did anyone else locally have the same problem ? Are you willing to forego your holiday next year for the sake of a decent crop ; )

[carlseawolf]

same here ,
all the bulbs have formed, then have bolted and the cloves started to re-grow

[Alice]

Hello Peter H and welcome to the Vine. Sorry about your garlic. How long were you on holiday because I don't do anything to mine. I take it you have checked there is nothing beneath the ground. Mine were planted in November and not quite ready, but I've had a poke down there and there are pretty big cloves. Can only suggest, maybe they were too wet. For next year you could try earthing the soil up into drills and planting into the top of that. Or the winter was too soft and mild and the garlic just rotted away. Better luck next year.

[sewer rat]

Hi Peter
As Alice has mentioned, I planted my garlic in drills, and other than weeding it, have done nothing to it at all. To be honest, I only finished weeding it today, and you honestly could not see the stalks for the weeds, but of the 1750 odd cloves planted, I reckon to have maybe 50 duds, the rest seem to be holding their own, though not nearly ready yet. It does sound as though your bulbs or their necks have gone soft and rotted and I would imagine this is down to being too wet.
Dunno if it would work for Garlic (can't see why not) but Chempak No 4 feed is used to firm up onions and leeks prior to harvest - might be worth looking into

[bubblewrap]

Grown 3 lots in different parts of my lottie results patchy.
Best garlic from "prepared bed" (bed 6ft sq) I riddled soil added one & half bags of sand & 3 or buckets of manure.Results from this quite good bulbs werenot large but were but quite srrong.
I planted out in October.

[Cutecumber]

Mine (in large pots, planted March) were starting to look like they were fading, so I dug down. The bulbs are quite big, but they still feel smooth as if it hasn't split - which is a possibility, being a late planting. Does anyone know exactly when they split, if they do?

[pigletwillie]

As I go to France a lot I tend to buy my garlic for planting over there as its much cheaper and is grown in a very similar climate to us here. A kilo of Normandy grown Lautrec bulbs is about 8 euros and about 6 euros for the standard white variety.

This year we grew Lautrec garlic and standard white garlic. Some was grown in raised beds and some in traditional beds to see which performed best for future reference. It was all sown in the last week in September and has no special treatment other than being kept weed free and having lots of wood ash applied. There was no difference in cropping or harvest time between the beds but other than losing 6 plants due to the neck rotting, we have had a bumper crop with good size and division.

I think that it will suffer if its planted in very heavy, wet ground and like all alliums, once it starts to dry out, the last thing you want is for it to be hit by deluges of rain like what we have had here.

[Headfry]

mine have awful rust this year, the plants look orange!!!
thick stems, but no bulbs...... not a good year!

[pigletwillie]

Mine always suffer from rust Headfry, like you this year was very bad but it didnt affect the size of bulb.

[moggssue]

I planted in a big container in March, and stood it on bricks to allow more drainage. They were looking fine until a week or so ago, if a bit spindly, now all the stems have gone yellow and collapsed. Feeling down, the bulbs (like cutecumer says) feel firm but not split. The compost does look very wet, but then it would after all that rain. I was going to dig one up to have a look at what's going on. If they've not split but obviously aren't going to now, are they still edible if they're firm?

[pigletwillie]

They will be edible. They do die down and that is a sign that that their ready to harvest.

Lift them up and see. You might find that they do not appear to have divided but have done.

[lozza_9]

Mine have also gone rusty - Can I still eat them? Should I just dig them up and see what they look like or wait till the longest day as I heard thats the day to dig them up!

Lozza