Spring planting garlic

[svalli]

Even we have still thick layer snow on the ground I dug a path to the greenhouse and planted my refrigerator vernalized garlic cloves to Rootrainers. I want them to be well rooted before the ground thaws and they go to garden. Right now it is just above freezing point, but because there is no heating in the greenhouse, it will go below freezing with the temps outdoors. I think that these should still survive and be ready for spring planting.

There is total of 160 cloves of three hardneck and two softneck varieties. I planted these same varieties and some others in ground in last October. It will be nice to compare which grow better, the fall or spring planted ones. I hope that the cold treatment I am giving them this way is sufficient for the clove formation.


Sari

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by svalli

Even we have still thick layer snow on the ground I dug a path to the greenhouse and planted my refrigerator vernalized garlic cloves to Rootrainers. I want them to be well rooted before the ground thaws and they go to garden. Right now it is just above freezing point, but because there is no heating in the greenhouse, it will go below freezing with the temps outdoors. I think that these should still survive and be ready for spring planting.

There is total of 160 cloves of three hardneck and two softneck varieties. I planted these same varieties and some others in ground in last October. It will be nice to compare which grow better, the fall or spring planted ones. I hope that the cold treatment I am giving them this way is sufficient for the clove formation.


Sari

Sari looks nice I always look forward to you dropping in to show us what you are up to.

Worth

[Dutch]

Hi Sari,
Thank you for posting pictures and giving us an easy to understand explanation of your garlic experiment.
I think it will be interesting to many of us.
Dutch

[svalli]

Thanks guys, I am trying to extend the season here in the far north and love experimenting with new plants and techniques. Gardening here is sometimes challenging and I still see dreams about my garden in Waukesha county in Wisconsin. I'm still trying to convince myself that moving back here after 14 years in more temperate climate was right thing to do, but during the dark, cold and long winter it is quite hard to do.

Luckily it is already March and days are rapidly getting longer.

Sari

[henry]

I have done spring planting if you plant early the ground is cold enough and there is no need for the cold treatment in areas that get good snow cover. The one problem I have found is that the harvest is pushed back to late August here in southern BC making it hard to dry the garlic and no chance of getting it cured in time for fall seed sales, it is fine for our own seed but much to late for shipping.

[svalli]

Does your ground freeze deeply?

Here the ground freezes so deep that it takes long time for it to thaw enough for planting and then it may be getting too warm rapidly. I know that some people here keep the cloves in the refrigerator until they can be planted to garden. My first tries on garlic few years ago was planting cloves directly to the garden during spring without any cold treatment and all I got was single rounds.

I have grown garlic only two successful seasons so far and first year I got the planting stock so late that I had not time to plant all of them. Luckily I saved half of them for spring and kept them in refrigerator and planted in pots in March and transplanted to garden in end of May. My fall planted did very poorly due to location in shady spot next to birch trees. The spring planted ones grew much better in the middle of the vegetable garden.

My fall planted garlic is in better spot now and should produce well like it did last year. One reason for this fiddling with spring planting is that I did not want to risk loosing the seed stock if the winter is bad for the fall planted garlic.

We had quite warm December followed with a week of temperatures below -20°C in beginning of January with almost no snow cover and I'm a bit concerned if the garlic and many other plants survived. It will be nerve-wraking to wait what comes up when the snow is melting.

Sari

[Ricky Shaw]

Got my fingers crossed for you. Good luck, I hope there's no winter kill.

[henry]

Originally Posted by svalli

Does your ground freeze deeply?

Here the ground freezes so deep that it takes long time for it to thaw enough for planting and then it may be getting too warm rapidly. I know that some people here keep the cloves in the refrigerator until they can be planted to garden. My first tries on garlic few years ago was planting cloves directly to the garden during spring without any cold treatment and all I got was single rounds.

I have grown garlic only two successful seasons so far and first year I got the planting stock so late that I had not time to plant all of them. Luckily I saved half of them for spring and kept them in refrigerator and planted in pots in March and transplanted to garden in end of May. My fall planted did very poorly due to location in shady spot next to birch trees. The spring planted ones grew much better in the middle of the vegetable garden.

My fall planted garlic is in better spot now and should produce well like it did last year. One reason for this fiddling with spring planting is that I did not want to risk loosing the seed stock if the winter is bad for the fall planted garlic.

We had quite warm December followed with a week of temperatures below -20°C in beginning of January with almost no snow cover and I'm a bit concerned if the garlic and many other plants survived. It will be nerve-wraking to wait what comes up when the snow is melting.

Sari

Our ground will freeze more then a foot if there is not much snow cover, with good early snow cover 4'' to 6'' frozen would be normal.
vernalized garlic cloves some interesting research that I found.

[rxkeith]

the one time i spring planted garlic was the year some one sent me four different varieties as a surprise in a seed swap. i got them in november when we already had eight inches of snow on the ground, and was piling up fast. i stored the bulbs in the fridge, and planted as early as i could the following spring. i got divided bulbs, but they were smaller than normal. the following year, cloves planted in the fall gave me full sized bulbs.
i think that if you have a long enough summer, which you, and i don't, spring planting garlic will give you full sized bulbs. in our case, we will get garlic, just not as big.
let us know how your experiment turns out.



keith

[PhilaGardener]

Nice experiment, hope you get a great crop!

[svalli]

All of garlic cloves have sprouted in the rootrainers. I moved them out from the greenhouse couple of weeks ago, because the greenhouse was getting really warm during sunny days. The snow has melted, but ground is still frozen, so these must wait about a month before I can plant them in ground.

We have not had time to go to see the field where I planted garlic last fall, so I do not know, if there is anything yet coming up. If the fall planted fail to grow, we will have at least some garlic growing.

[Dutch]

Thanks for the update Sari!!!
This past Sunday was the first day this season the temperature got above 70F here in Waukesha county Wisconsin.
Thank you for starting this thread Sari, I find it quite interesting.
Dutch

[svalli]

Yesterday I moved the garlic plants back to greenhouse. Even these should be frost hardy, I do not want to risk the leaves been frostbitten. Forecast for the next 7 days has freezing temperatures every night and the days are not much warmer than that.

Just last night we were wondering how warm it is now in Wisconsin. I loved there how quickly the spring came and all the snow vanished suddenly, without the long cool and wet period like it is here.

Dutch, where in Waukesha county are you gardening? We lived over three years in a duplex in Waukesha and when we moved second time to USA after a year in Finland, we bought a house in Genesee, where we lived over ten years. We spent years planting fruit trees and amending the soil of the vegetable garden in Genesee. It was hard to leave such beautiful place and the nice village, where everyone welcomed us warmly and made us feel home. I feel like I am now missing Wisconsin more than I was missing my home country, when we lived abroad.

Sari

[Dutch]

Hi Sari,
Yes Genesee was a nice quite village, but with all the new subdivisions and the all the new shopping centers in the area, you wouldn't recognize the place. I liked it the way it was 30 years ago. When I was young I use to look forward to climbing the old wooden platform tower at Lapham Peak in the fall to view all the trees changing colors. It was truly a beautiful sight.
I live near Tess Corners, where New Berlin and Muskego meet on the east side of the Waukesha county. Genesee is kind of on the west side of the county. Like two ships passing in the middle of the night.
Thanks for asking.
Dutch

[svalli]

Hi Dutch,

I have general idea where Tess Corners is when driving south on Moorland Rd. I used to work in New Berlin and had friends who lived in Muskego.

We lived quite close to HWY59 and 83 intersection in the old Genesee village. There were a lot of new subdivisions built south of us, but our lot was next to a valley owned by a spring water bottling company, so it should not be under threat of new development. It is now 9 years since we moved, so I'm sure that there has been some changes, but luckily they did not go forward with the re-routing of HWY 83 like it was planned. One of the proposals went over our neighbors' house.

Sari