Garlic-Life cycle to date

[Ozark]

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.

[Nadoniac]

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.

[Kazedwards]

Bulbils is the right word.


-Zach

[Durgan]

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.

http://durgan.org/2016/May%202016/15...20Garlic/HTML/ 15 May 2016 Garlic
Garlic, cloves, rounds and bulbils are all thriving. I expect a good harvest.

[Jeannine Anne]

Mine is almost ready to harvest, very early this year

[bjbebs]

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.

[pmcgrady]

Originally Posted by bjbebs

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.

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

[pmcgrady]

Any garlic that had California in the name, at least half of it died.
I'm sticking to the hardnecks that have weird names! Stems as big as quarters!

[KC.Sun]

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

I hope they form well.

[Jeannine Anne]

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.

[KC.Sun]

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.

[henry]

Witches brooming.
Oregon State University recommends not fertilizing garlic heavily in the fall or winter, since it may cause abnormal growth called witches' brooming. Using a foliar fertilizer isn't indicated if the soil had enough nutrition at planting time. If you wish to foliar fertilize, add a spreader-sticker so the solution will adhere to the waxy, vertical garlic leaves. Stop using foliar feeding when the fifth leaf is present on the garlic plant or after the bulb begins to enlarge.

Originally Posted by KC.Sun

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.

[KC.Sun]

Originally Posted by henry

Witches brooming.
Oregon State University recommends not fertilizing garlic heavily in the fall or winter, since it may cause abnormal growth called witches' brooming. Using a foliar fertilizer isn't indicated if the soil had enough nutrition at planting time. If you wish to foliar fertilize, add a spreader-sticker so the solution will adhere to the waxy, vertical garlic leaves. Stop using foliar feeding when the fifth leaf is present on the garlic plant or after the bulb begins to enlarge.

I'm not sure if this is what happened. I didn't apply fertilizer. It does only show up in ajo rojo a creole type garlic. Only a few bulbs It doesn't show anywhere else. Do you have pictures? I couldn't find a picture doing a web search.

[Jeannine Anne]

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.

[Kazedwards]

Originally Posted by KC.Sun

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.

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