Garlic-Life cycle to date
 

[url]http://durgan.org/2016/May%202016/15%20May%202016%20Garlic/HTML/[/url] 15 May 2016 Garlic
Garlic, cloves, rounds and bulbils are all thriving. I expect a good harvest.
[IMG]http://durgan.org/2016/May%202016/15%20May%202016%20Garlic/HTML/dsc_958115%20may%202016%20garlic_std.jpg[/IMG]


[url]http://durgan.org/2016/April%202016/16%20April%202016%20Garlic/HTML/[/url] 16 April 2016 Garlic
Garlic growth to date. The large plants are normal planted cloves. The one smaller plant row is first year rounds. The small grass looking row is garlic seeds,bulbils. All are growing very well.
[IMG]http://durgan.org/2016/April%202016/16%20April%202016%20Garlic/HTML/16%20april%202016%20garlic%200609_std.jpg[/IMG]

[url]http://durgan.org/2016/March%202016/12%20March%202016%20Garlic/HTML/[/url] 12 March 2016 Garlic
Garlic is growing. There is still no sign of the row of bulbils, but the first year round are all up.
[IMG]http://durgan.org/2016/March%202016/12%20March%202016%20Garlic/HTML/dsc_870412%20march%202016%20garlic_std.jpg[/IMG]


[url]http://www.durgan.org/2015/October%202015/19%20October%202015%20Planting%20Garlic/HTML/[/url] 19 October 2015 Planting Garlic
[IMG]http://www.durgan.org/2015/October%202015/19%20October%202015%20Planting%20Garlic/HTML/dsc_843519%20october%202015%20planting%20garlic_std.jpg[/IMG]

Garlic was planted to be harvested in July 2016. A row of bulbils was planted at about 2 inch spacing, a row of rounds planted at 4 inch spacing and five rows (80 cloves) was planted at 6 inch spacing. The garlic is from the 2015 harvest. The 8 foot square bed was prepared about a month ago and heavily mulched to retain moisture. Boards were placed to mark the rows. Garlic has no difficulty pushing through the mulch in the Spring. The bulbils will produce rounds in 2016 and the rounds now planted will produce about three normal sized cloves in 2016.Planting the bulbils and rounds will eventually become the cloves for normal planting. This allows more bulbs for use, since none will be used for seed.

Looking good Durgan! My garlic survived the mild winter, despite the fact that my much (mostly twig and leaf debris) didn't hold out until spring.

Linda

Very nice, Durgan! I'm growing garlic for the first time. Friends gave me some starts last fall of a strain that has been grown in gardens on their family farm here since the 1890's or earlier. I planted them, and now I have a small patch of plants that look a lot like those larger ones of yours.

I've determined that I've got some variety of hard neck garlic, they're growing scapes now. I pulled one bulb early and we ate it chopped up in a salad - cloves hadn't formed yet and the bulb was all-white with no trace of red or purple. It had a very pleasant, mild garlic flavor.

There are so many different kinds of hard neck garlic, I wonder what variety this old one is. Does anyone here know what garlic variety might have been commonly grown by farm folks here in the Missouri Ozarks in the 19th Century? It probably wasn't bought or ordered, but shared by a neighbor or relative as that was usual practice at the time.

Most garlic is very similar. If you have a good crop perpetuate that. There is never any new breeds of garlic since all crossing is impossible because the seeds are sterile. They produce but perfect clones of the parent. Go to a garlic festival and look around. Almost all garlic is the same. Some is a little different in size but this is normal depending upon growing conditions. Rhetoric looks after the rest.

[url]http://www.durgan.org/URL/?TQZWH[/url] Garlic, the sweet breath of life!
An Overview of the five varieties and 17 sub-varieties of Garlic.

Botanists classify all true garlics under the species Allium Sativum. There are two subspecies; Ophioscorodon , or hard-necked garlics (Ophios for short) and Sativum , or soft-necked garlics.

I harvested the first of my hardneck garlic yesterday here near Seattle. Spanish Roja. Some never made scapes but bulb size was 1.75-2" which is very good for me as this has always been my earliest and smallest hardneck. Has anyone else ever had hardnecks that didn't scape? The Romanian red next to these plants are scaping normally.

I'm not a garlic expert, so please forgive me if this is a stupid question. Did your garlic leaves just die without sending up scapes? We usually harvest in mid-July, but we are in the north. I am wondering if you waited long enough.....

Linda

I wondered the same as Linda. WA is a similar latitude as us in WI, although I know interior parts are hotter and more desert like. My hardnecks (I grow Chesnok red) scape every year right around June 15.

I picked my garlic 3 weeks ago.

My best guess is that daylight hours are what cause garlic to scape. Similar to onions bulbing. It would also make sense because strong plants and weak plants scape at the same time. Some years garlic will come up a month sooner than normal other years it will be late, but it will always scape at the same time for that variety. I just noticed today that my plants are starting to grow scapes.

Most garlic is very similar but there can be a lot of contrast too. Cultural practices still affect it over time. It similar to having different strains of the same tomato, like Brandywine. There are new breeds of garlic. Seed companies do not work with garlic due to the difficulty of breeding it, but home growers, like myself do. I have several new garlics growing now. Two of them are in the garden from last year. I have 20 or so in the garage under lights right now as well. Of the ones under lights I might get 5 strong plants. I had sowed 500 seeds and that is what I got. So seeds and seedlings can have a lot of problems making it new garlic a rarity.

Here is a good source to learn more about true garlic seed.
[url]http://www.ivansnewgarlics.com[/url]
He also sells garlic he has bred.


-Zach

I'm
 

[QUOTE=Labradors2;563974]I'm not a garlic expert, so please forgive me if this is a stupid question. Did your garlic leaves just die without sending up scapes? We usually harvest in mid-July, but we are in the north. I am wondering if you waited long enough.....

Linda[/QUOTE]

Depends on if it's hard neck, or soft neck garlic...

Its a great year for garlic here too, but in Durgan's rich soil the crop is much more robust than mine. Mine is starting to scape in a few varieties. Does anyone have plants to succession crop in their garlic bed after harvest? I'm going to plant beets, and later peas. It might be too hot for peas but last year the peas didn't have time to produce anything but greens. I might put a squash transplant in there too.

- Lisa

I do bush beans after my spinach and broccoli. And lettuce and radishes after my onions and garlic.

I harvested because the ones that did scape started scaping on May 3rd and all but five leaves were brown and dry. I pulled one and the bulb looked good so i harvested the rest. Of 16 spanish roja only about 8 scaped. Just seemed very odd to me.

[QUOTE=greenthumbomaha;564049]Its a great year for garlic here too, but in Durgan's rich soil the crop is much more robust than mine. Mine is starting to scape in a few varieties. Does anyone have plants to succession crop in their garlic bed after harvest? I'm going to plant beets, and later peas. It might be too hot for peas but last year the peas didn't have time to produce anything but greens. I might put a squash transplant in there too.

- Lisa[/QUOTE]
I always grow bush beans after garlic that i start in seed starting trays so they are ready to go right after getting the last garlic out.

I realize now that the garlic starts that were given to me last summer were sprouts from bubils that had fallen on the ground. Is "bubils" the right word? Anyway, the seeds from the top scapes of hard neck garlic. They were given to me as straight shoots like green onion plants with little 1/4" bulbs at the bottoms.

I spaced those out in a corner of my garden and the plants looked OK for a few weeks, then they died down and disappeared in the fall. This spring they came up real well and they've made full-grown, vigorous looking plants. A couple of weeks ago they started sending up scapes, which have now turned a full circle and the "bulbs" at the top are turning white. I cut off a bunch of those scapes and chopped them up in an Asian stir-fry with veggies and rice and they were real good.

Poking around in the soil with my fingers, I think the bulbs are now about 1" to 1 1/2" and I expect they'll be ready for harvest by July. I've read that all the scapes should be cut off to make garlic bulbs grow bigger but I don't have a use for all those scapes. I've also read that they're good pickled, and I might try that as I like garlic and I like all kinds of pickles. Has anyone here ever pickled garlic scapes? Thx.

Bulbils is the right word.


-Zach

I have done a lot of rethinking about harvesting garlic. Experimenting with the scape seeds, bulbils, a few things have been learned by serendipity.

When collecting seeds the plant is left in the ground about 6 weeks longer than the conventional harvest in early July. This causes the bulb in the ground to get much larger and basically split the envelope and the cloves are bursting the sides of the clump. This year 2015 such bulbs was dried and simply placed in my root cellar. I found the bulbs thus treated lasted in prime condition as well as the completely encased cloves of the July harvest. This year all my garlic will be allowed to mature until splitting occurs, thus giving larger cloves, hence more garlic. This means harvest will be about the end of August in my Zone 5.

Another observation. I don't enjoy the scapes and use to cut them off at some stage of growth. In 2015 I left many on and found that growth is better than when cutting them off.

Conclusion; My hard neck garlic will be allowed to mature, harvest at the end of August, and harvest bulbils, since no scapes will be cut off.

For seed stock I will probably have enough rounds maturing this year to use for normal planting in October 2016.

[url]http://durgan.org/2016/May%202016/15%20May%202016%20Garlic/HTML/[/url] 15 May 2016 Garlic
Garlic, cloves, rounds and bulbils are all thriving. I expect a good harvest.
[IMG]http://durgan.org/2016/May%202016/15%20May%202016%20Garlic/HTML/dsc_958115%20may%202016%20garlic_std.jpg[/IMG]

Mine is almost ready to harvest, very early this year

I've grown the same unknown strain of hardneck for decades. It is very predictable.
Scapes start the first week of June. Harvest begins around July 10, weather dependent.

This year is different. All scapes will be clipped by mid week. Plants are taller than normal,
up to 36". I expect harvest will begin sooner.

I grow big blocks, a few thousand plants. My cultural practice is the same. This garlic sees no supplemental water or food. Why is this years crop so far ahead of schedule?

We had a dry winter. The up and down weather this spring has been warmer than usual.
I'm thinking other folks in the Midwest are seeing the same thing.

[QUOTE=Durgan;562394]Most garlic is very similar. If you have a good crop perpetuate that. There is never any new breeds of garlic since all crossing is impossible because the seeds are sterile. They produce but perfect clones of the parent. Go to a garlic festival and look around. Almost all garlic is the same. Some is a little different in size but this is normal depending upon growing conditions. Rhetoric looks after the rest.[/QUOTE]
There are people working to breed new garlic varieties. The actual seeds take some effort to produce, but they're not sterile. They're usually referred to as "true garlic seed" (or TGS) because many people will refer to the bulbils (little bulbs) as "garlic seed". The bulbils grow out of the flower head and produce the perfect clones of the parent plant that you described.

Some links:
[LIST][*][URL]http://garlicseed.blogspot.com/p/growing-garlic-from-true-seed.html[/URL][*] [URL]http://garden.lofthouse.com/true-garlic-seed.phtml[/URL][*][URL]https://goingtoseed.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/true-garlic-seed-update/[/URL][/LIST]

Mine is also almost ready for harvest. I started seeing growth in January for mine.

I hope they form well.

I am a bit worried about mine actually, the scapes are double curled now but the stems are thinner than I usually get. My garlic, which I have grown for along time is usually very big. This year everything has grown oddly. We had high heats in February and March and things started to race ahead then it cooled down somewhat, then picked up to normal again. I am not sure if this stop and start weather may have affected them. Not sure what to do at this point.

I'm not sure either. It was so warm in my area that seemed like winter didn't even arrive. It reached the 70s by mid January. Temps were circulating between 50-70s pretty regularly. Then by the end of March through early May temps would hit freezing temps at night with daytime temps around 50-60s. But most of the time around the low 50s.

Some of my garlic looks strange to me. The first time it sprouted and grew, it looks like the other post and has one fat stem. I have at least 4 plants where the fat stem seems to have died back, only to regrow into tiny little grass like leaves.

Has anyone encountered this before. I almost have a feeling that these plants are behaving like bulbils plantings.

I can't answer that one. I am just hoping that I get enough really big cloves to regrow in the fall, I can use the smaller ones myself.I have never had any bother with garlic before, I would have said it is the easiest of veggies to grow. I have seen folks who have had small garlic and wondered what they did wrong as mine seemed so easy, but this year it seems my smugness had gone AWOL. I have done nothing different, Same garlic, home saved and had been for years. I have heard that home saved eventually gets smaller but I have been growing this one for years without problems. I am going outside to pull one and take alook what is happening down below.

[QUOTE=KC.Sun;565027]Some of my garlic looks strange to me. The first time it sprouted and grew, it looks like the other post and has one fat stem. I have at least 4 plants where the fat stem seems to have died back, only to regrow into tiny little grass like leaves. [/QUOTE]



The plants that look like grass have divided and the individual cloves are growing as separate plants. The same thing happens when you leave it in the ground after a season. I imagine you will get rounds out of those plants instead of bulbs. You can use the rounds in the same manner cooking wise. It you plant them in the fall the will be bulbs the next spring.


-Zach

The curling scape is normal. As far as the size I have heard that each leaf represents a clove. So maybe thinner stems means few leaves and few leaves means fewer but bigger cloves?


-Zach

Yes, I usually harvest mine when I have 2 curls, but this year the two curls have come much earlier so I am holding off a bit as the stems are thinner.I only get about 6 cloves on my garlic anyway but they are usually huge. We will see

[QUOTE=Kazedwards;565071]The plants that look like grass have divided and the individual cloves are growing as separate plants. The same thing happens when you leave it in the ground after a season. I imagine you will get rounds out of those plants instead of bulbs. You can use the rounds in the same manner cooking wise. It you plant them in the fall the will be bulbs the next spring.


-Zach[/QUOTE]

I'll look out for that. At least I can expect something...I was starting to wonder if I'd get anything out of those.

Thanks Zach

[QUOTE=bjbebs;564864]I've grown the same unknown strain of hardneck for decades. It is very predictable.
Scapes start the first week of June. Harvest begins around July 10, weather dependent.

This year is different. All scapes will be clipped by mid week. Plants are taller than normal,
up to 36". I expect harvest will begin sooner.

I grow big blocks, a few thousand plants. My cultural practice is the same. This garlic sees no supplemental water or food. Why is this years crop so far ahead of schedule?

We had a dry winter. The up and down weather this spring has been warmer than usual.
I'm thinking other folks in the Midwest are seeing the same thing.[/QUOTE]

Wow, good report, but my scapes are just starting in Illinois...must be the different varieties, or when we planted them.