Elephant Garlic
 

just ordered 25 bulbs for 9.99 from bonanza (missourijack), never grown before. I read this is actually a leak.

after some short reading on the net, some ppl say put in the freezer for a few weeks and plant later in the year for southern climate. never done that either, any thoughts?

also read that customary to plant on short day (12/21) and harvest on longest day (06/21) or thereabouts. never done that neither. usually plant in late October, but may wait till turkey day.

I've got something similar and I try to plant early September. I use first as baby leaks starting December.

[QUOTE=ilex;594887]I've got something similar and I try to plant early September. I use first as baby leaks starting December.[/QUOTE]

Nice, probably could manage that here with the weather as winter doesn't really cool down until the new year. Have a bazillion wild green onions that sprout up in the field......

Relegated to soft neck varieties due to spring weather and early summer being hotter than northern counterparts. First time growing the BIG garlic, we shall see.

[QUOTE=My Foot Smells;594867]just ordered 25 bulbs for 9.99 from bonanza (missourijack), never grown before. I read this is actually a leak.

after some short reading on the net, some ppl say put in the freezer for a few weeks and plant later in the year for southern climate. never done that either, any thoughts?

also read that customary to plant on short day (12/21) and harvest on longest day (06/21) or thereabouts. never done that neither. usually plant in late October, but may wait till turkey day.[/QUOTE]

I haven't put them in the freezer. I just put the Elephant garlic in the refrigerator a couple weeks before planting.

I planted ours last December 21 (Shortest day) and it was ready in June. I don't think planting a month earlier would hurt a thing unless the ground temperature is still pretty hot. I just remembered where I read that [URL]http://www.harvesttotable.com/2012/08/fall-and-spring-planted-garlic/[/URL]

[B]Temperature.[/B] Garlic germinates in soil temperature of 55°F and grows best in soil temperatures ranging from 55°F to 75°F (13-24°C). Garlic that has established roots will overwinter best.

[QUOTE=AlittleSalt;595051]I haven't put them in the freezer. I just put the Elephant garlic in the refrigerator a couple weeks before planting.

I planted ours last December 21 (Shortest day) and it was ready in June. I don't think planting a month earlier would hurt a thing unless the ground temperature is still pretty hot. I just remembered where I read that [URL]http://www.harvesttotable.com/2012/08/fall-and-spring-planted-garlic/[/URL]

[B]Temperature.[/B] Garlic germinates in soil temperature of 55°F and grows best in soil temperatures ranging from 55°F to 75°F (13-24°C). Garlic that has established roots will overwinter best.[/QUOTE]

Forget garlic, it's a leek.

Leeks have a very short summer rest. They will sprout at the minimum temperature drop in late August/September. Sometimes just after first rain. Obviously, soil is quite hot (I'm at the equivalent of San Diego).

yes, I meant to say refridgerator, not freezer. Thank you for the correction.

You're right in the heart of Arkansas, I would plant in November too. [URL]http://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/little-rock/arkansas/united-states/usar0909[/URL]

ilex, you are right. It is a leek that is like an onion too. The bulb looks like garlic. I have been as close to San Diego as 1,165 km - Somewhere in-between lives my sister-in-law in a desert town. I don't dare to cross that desert - she might be there. :shock::?::lol:

[QUOTE=AlittleSalt;595051]

[B]Temperature.[/B] Garlic germinates in soil temperature of 55°F and grows best in soil temperatures ranging from 55°F to 75°F (13-24°C). Garlic that has established roots will overwinter best.[/QUOTE]

Well technically term 'germinates' refers to a seed.

Who decides what is what in the plant world and why?
I have known the better part of my life elephant garlic was a leek, about the same minute I heard of the stuff the next I heard it was a leek.
I think it was on the Frugal Gourmet show on PBS years ago.
Why is elephant garlic classed as a leak and not garlic.

Worth

Apparently, elephant garlic does not have the same health benefits as regular garlic. Who knows? Maybe it has other health benefits.

Technically I think it means Elephant Garlic can cross with leeks, but not with garlic. Down to the DNA I guess, they are a match for the leek.
Where neither the Elephant nor the true garlic often make seeds, maybe it's mostly a moot point? Or does EG often flower and set seeds? If so, could cross with your leeks. :yes:

I have read that they are called scallops, garlic, and leeks. They look like garlic to me. The only reason I've grown it is because others have told me I cannot grow it in-ground. Wrong.

[URL]https://youtu.be/CLnADKgurvc[/URL]

[url]https://youtu.be/RJv2Mugm2RI[/url]

Most leeks make bulbs, specially old ones. Wild leeks make lots of them. Elephant garlic bulbs just happens to look like garlic, but anything else is quite leek.

Note there's a real garlic called elephant garlic grown in South America (Chiloe Island).

Last fall I ordered elephant garlic from UK and planted to my garlic bed here in Finland. Last winter was harsh and none of the cloves survived. Now I am getting some cloves from a grower in Finland, but it is already too late to plant them here so I and will refrigerate them and plant during spring.

My DH is currently in Japan on a business trip and I asked him to look for local garlic varieties. This morning he e-mailed me that elephant garlic is commonly used there. I started to google it and found a thing called Japanese garlic, which does not look like a regular garlic clove. Then I noticed that they look exactly like elephant garlic corms. This Japanese garlic is advertised to have some special health values, but I could not find any good information about the plants themselves and I can find information about them only on English ans Spanish, but nothing in Japanese. Many Japanese sites however had a lot of pictures of the giant elephant garlic called [I]janboninniku [/I](some showed also the corms attached to the heads).

I do not speak Spanish, but I found this video interesting.
[URL]https://youtu.be/MWb9kSh1fzE[/URL]
As I understood it shows planting elephant garlic from cloves and corms, which grow to a giant single bulb the first year.

Sari

very informative, never really gave it much thought. it is still hotter than the dickens here with highs in the mid 80's, very unseasonable. still haven't cleaned up the garden in its entirety, as things are still growing. despite lack of watering effort, tomatoes came back (although small and not mid-summer tasty) and peppers plants have grown big as well. so haven't dropped the garlic yet either, waiting on cooler weather, maybe turkey day....

Thanks for reminding me. I need to see what shape our elephant garlic bulbs are in. We've had the same near record weather here too. I took a soil temperature reading at noon today, and it's still 77F. They're saying a cold front is supposed to move in Wednesday night and it might rain. Best of all, highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s.

[QUOTE=AlittleSalt;598299]Thanks for reminding me. I need to see what shape our elephant garlic bulbs are in. We've had the same near record weather here too. I took a soil temperature reading at noon today, and it's still 77F. They're saying a cold front is supposed to move in Wednesday night and it might rain. Best of all, highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s.[/QUOTE]

I just went to go sit outside and it is 80 frigging degrees. :evil::(:cry:

Worth

DFW tied the record high today of 88. We have both ACs on and 3 fans.

I did check the elephant garlic and it's still firm and heavy, so it should be okay for planting.

Please stop complaining about the heat, it makes me envious :lol:

It was below 0 Celsius here this morning and a light dusting of some white stuff on the ground.

Hopefully this year we get a layer of snow before the extremely cold weather hits. Last year it got to -20°C for a week without any snow on the ground and it killed the elephant garlic cloves. That is why I will not risk planting them in ground at fall. If I get them growing and multiplying from spring planted cloves, I may then try the fall planting with thick mulching.

Sari

Go ahead and plant the bulbs making sure to give them a bit more room than regular garlic as they can get huge if the soil is rich in organic mater and kept well weeded. They don't compete well with weeds and they even do better when lightly mulched to keep the weeds down. I grew them for about 25 years and planted anywhere from early October into early December and they did great almost every year. I liked them but their flavor is very very mild. We found the best use for them was in a pot roast cooked slow and long. They made the gravy fantastic as well as adding to the flavor of the roast.

Bill

[QUOTE=b54red;598611]Go ahead and plant the bulbs making sure to give them a bit more room than regular garlic as they can get huge if the soil is rich in organic mater and kept well weeded. They don't compete well with weeds and they even do better when lightly mulched to keep the weeds down. I grew them for about 25 years and planted anywhere from early October into early December and they did great almost every year. I liked them but their flavor is very very mild. We found the best use for them was in a pot roast cooked slow and long. They made the gravy fantastic as well as adding to the flavor of the roast.

Bill[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the information and will plant this weekend, as things are cooling down a little bit. I have never grown E-G, but have grown lots of reg. garlic before. One reason for planting is the showy nature.

I do have some Bermuda that has popped up and is a real bugger to get rid of. It's strange as surrounding grass/weeds are nut grass and other w/ no Bermuda, but I guess some seed "flew" in and loves the rich dirt.

[QUOTE=My Foot Smells;598625]Thanks for the information and will plant this weekend, as things are cooling down a little bit. I have never grown E-G, but have grown lots of reg. garlic before. One reason for planting is the showy nature.

I do have some Bermuda that has popped up and is a real bugger to get rid of. It's strange as surrounding grass/weeds are nut grass and other w/ no Bermuda, but I guess some seed "flew" in and loves the rich dirt.[/QUOTE]

Get on top of that Bermuda grass and dig it all out. The roots are usually very deep and it can be a pain to get it all out but it is worth the work. I used some cow manure that was full of Bermuda seeds one time and it took me years to finally get it out of my beds.

Bill

I planted 20 cloves of supermarket elephant garlic four year ago. It grew very well and the bulbs were baseball size.

I found when using it, that I disliked the flavour. It is nothing like real garlic, and I never grew it again. The size is sure fascinating and a bulb cost just less than five dollars in the supermarket.

Here is a sample of the crop.
[IMG]http://www.durgan.org/2015/July%202015/23%20July%202015%20Garlic/HTML/dsc_498323%20july%202015%20garlic_std.jpg[/IMG]






[IMG]http://www.durgan.org/2015/July%202015/23%20July%202015%20Garlic/HTML/dsc_498723%20july%202015%20garlic_std.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.durgan.org/2015/July%202015/23%20July%202015%20Garlic/HTML/dsc_499523%20july%202015%20garlic_std.jpg[/IMG]

I'm in the middle of planting 28 EG bulbs. While taking them from the plant I noticed these things on the roots. I'm not sure what they are - or if you can plant them? They're the size of a dime. I used a penny in the picture so it would show up better.

They look like baby elephants to me. :cute:
Mind you I've never grown it, so wait for real advice. I did get 'pearls' growing from the side of leeks but they were close to the original stem. The alliums all seem to have multiple ways of ensuring their survival. :yes:

Those are called corms and they can be planted to grow more elephant garlic. If you look at the Spanish video, I have linked on the previous page, it shows that first year the corms grow to huge single clove bulb and second year that becomes a bulb with cloves.
I have not yet grown elephant garlic either, but I have heard that the corms are easily missed when harvesting the crop and the ones remaining in the ground will start growing next spring. I think that elephant garlic getting out of control in my area is not a threat, since the all of the corms may not survive winter in ground.

Sari

Sari, thank you. You not only answered my question, but you answered another one as well. The area where I planted Elephant garden last year has a few volunteers coming up. They must be the corms that I missed when I pulled the EG earlier this year.

Thank you again. :)

I grew it AZ without any problem. If you happen to let it bloom it's a great attractor for hummingbirds and bees.

The green leaves and stems can be used in the spring-early summer time for stir-frys as they are thick and tender, before the new bulbs form. They are faster growing and tenderer than regular leeks. So I actually use them more as a green than bulbs.They can be planted very closely.

Mine came from a market purchase as well, and each year I get more and more. I saw lots of bulblets sprouted with roots in my garden now, form leftovers of the summer, they will grow to full adulthood in due time.