Emperor's New Cloves?

[Rena]

I bought 6 heads at Trader Joe's yesterday. They do not have cloves they are one solid head?? It says grown and packed in China. I am going to plant them and see what happens? Maybe this is not really garlic? They smell and are labeled garlic...any thoughts?

[Ruth_10]

Hmmm. A quick glance at the Territorial Seed catalog doesn't show any garlic that is one solid head. Are these maybe just individual cloves from a large variety?

[Rena]

Nope you can tell it is one solid head (I did dissect one) I will take a pic.. and will edit.

[neoguy]

I'm no expert, but I think what you have are called garlic rounds. Rounds are heads of garlic that haven't reached maturity. I believe cloves start forming in late spring or early summer, May or June. Up to that point it is a single large clove or, round. I think by planting the rounds you'll get heads with cloves next year.

[Soilsniffer]

Originally Posted by neoguy

I think what you have are called garlic rounds. Rounds are heads of garlic that haven't reached maturity.

That's what I heard as well. Last growing season, I picked, oh, 5 or 6 that turned out to be the single-clove round type. I found them interesting, but a bit of Internet research led me to conclude I just picked 'em early; alas, they were not a new rare variety that I discovered, darn it.

Couple weeks ago while planting my 2007-08 garlic crop, I came across 20 or so sprouting feral cloves that I missed last season. I re-planted the decent sized ones, which included one of the single-clove round type. I marked its location. I'm not touching it til July 08. We'll see what this one turns out to be.

J

[Rena]

See that is why I love this place I got my answer so I won't post the pics. I did plant them and I will update this thread whenever I am supposed to pull my garlic

[dcarch]

Clever title.

dcarch

[Worth1]

I thought is was about CLOVES not GARLIC.

Worth