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Garlic

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Mr_Yan

Guest
Well I've had marginal luck with garlic. The first year I got several nice heads almost two inches across. The drought last year killed us. This year they've been coming up small again but half my harvest is still in the ground. While the yield has been low the flavor is great.

I am growing hard neck garlic and rotating it around. I bought my seed stock from a nearly local farmer (45ish miles away) three or four years ago. I have or had a mix of music, brown tempest, spanish roja, and siberian and maybe one other but have since mixed them up and don't have a clue what is what.

Up here in the almost upper midwest I get mine in the ground about the first hard frost - mid October - and over winter it. Then about the time the ground has started to freeze I mulch heavily with shredded leafs.

Any pointers or experience and tips would be appreciated.
 
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Slowngreen

Guest
Interesting, I didnt know there were that many different types of garlic, just garlic and elephant is all I know lol.
 
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Mr_Yan

Guest
From what I have learned there are several named cultivators of both hard necked and soft necked garlic and that elephant garlic is really a cultivator of leeks.

I grow hard neck and most to all the commercial junk in the grocer's is soft neck. There is a hung flavor difference between the two but I don't know how much is between home and commercial and how much is between hard and soft. From what I have read the hard neck is supposed to be sharper and fuller flavored than soft. Hard necks will send up flower scapes the first year where soft won't.

I've pulled 14 of my 23 square feet of garlic this season. I'll post a photo of it when I have the camera back (camera followed the kids out of town)
 
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MB3

Guest
i am hoping all my garlic does okay. all the wacky cold-warm-cold-warm weather triggered bunches of it to sprout 3 or 4 times this winter when the weather suddenly warmed, followed by long hard frosts.
wish I had access to hardneck varieties, I am stuck to planting the large cloves from the store bought stuff.
 
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Mr_Yan

Guest
I planted grocery store stuff too. It failed totally. Nothing came up the next spring.

Almost all the major mail order seed companies have and ship garlic many will even ship it at the correct time to plant.

When I bought mine I managed to find a local garlic farmer selling on one of the local harvest websites. I contacted the guy and he put together a mixed bag of hardneck varieties for me and I had them four days later (used US mail).

I gave up on garlic this year. I will be growing leeks and shallots from seed though.
 
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majorcatfish

Guest
yup it's going to be a interesting year for garlic growers everywhere. either they are having drought, to much rain or extended freezing weather.
my first year growing garlic tried garlic from the grocery store that was a laugh, at that time did not know that they are treated with chemicals to inhibit them from sprouting, just like potatoes in time both will sprout.

last year the weather was perfect everyone of the garlic grew 12-15 inches tall, spring time rolled around they all sent out scapes which by the way were delicious.early may the rain set in and rained and rained we had 57 days of rain.
DSC_0026 (640x426).jpg

now don't get me wrong everything that was planted was loving every drop ,including every type of disease(rot, blight, mildew,wilt you name it we had it) would spray it rained it was a losing battle.

now back to the garlic, unfortunately picked a location that was easily flooded during heavy rains, plus poor drainage the garlic just sat in water.. which is what you do not want at this point. dug a drainage ditch which help divert a good portion of the water away.
early june even with ditch in place the vast majority of garlic was starting to rot, so pulled up all that i could
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planted about 450 was able to harvest about half, while curing lost more due to neck rot.
this is what we ended up with......
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we used some of the bigger cloves for cooking and saved the smaller ones including the elephant for seed.

last fall decided to use the same area, but raised it 8" and used a couple raised beds as well.
DSC_0006 - Copy.JPG

with this crazy weather it's going to be interesting to see how this years crop will turn out....

a good majority of seed catalogs carry garlic and they do ship according to you zone, but heres the kicker a lot of people look at the pictures and order from what they see, of course they<seed company will sell you whatever, they want your money> and thats where a lot of people get upset when it turns out poorly.
before ordering garlic best to contact your cooperative extension and ask what type is best for your region.
here are some of the major types.
artichoke
asiatic
creole
glazed purple stripe
marbled purple stripe
middle eastern
porcelain
rocambole
silverskin
turban
of course each one of these have sub-families.
if you are really interested in growing garlic this fall here is a book that you should get and read before you order.
the complete book of garlic by ted jordan meredith you can get on amazon
 
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Slowngreen

Guest
Thats awesome! Never seen garlic grown other than on tv.
 
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majorcatfish

Guest
oh yeah have 4 fans going during curing out in the barn everything get's hung and spaced for optimal air flow.
last year was a challenge with the rain besides losing garlic also lost some onions and shallots to neck rot.
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w_r_ranch

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That's a shame after all that effort. I hang ours down in the 'party barn' as there is always at least a breeze down there. I strung 2 S.S. cables to hang them from for the initial curing (about a month) & then remove the tops & roots before storing them in old plastic bread trays. I store the potatoes the same way... We lose some to rot, but not many.

Onions.jpg

Bread_Trays.JPG
 
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majorcatfish

Guest
after posting about doing some ribs this weekend checked on what was left of last years shallots, out of the 20 in the box only 12 were firm the rest went south on me.
 
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majorcatfish

Guest
will be ordering french and gray shallot sets this september
 
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MB3

Guest
I have had garlic shooting up scapes for a couple weeks now (really all winter, but the up and down weather killed some off, triggering it too early).
I have near 30 plants still showing signs of life, and hope more come up
all mine came from grocery store bulbs (I let most sprout first and planted in fall and winter).

next year I hope to catch a ride to the garlic fest at a farm city outside of my city. I could get it much cheaper than $1/2 bulbs (store price) and get hardneck as well as softneck, and lots of variety in general.
 
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majorcatfish

Guest
this cold winter sure has put the garlic way behind if i had to guess looking like a july harvest..
"knock on wood"
 
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