Chinese solo garlic

[svalli]

I have been trying to find information online about the Chinese solo garlic, which is sold here in the supermarkets. Some sites claim that these are garlic rounds of regular multi clove garlic either grown from bulbils or without vernalization. I have found on many gardening sites and blogs that many people have tried growing them, but they usually do not sprout or do rot without any growth. Anyway since I am curious, I purchased a package couple of months ago and have kept it in refrigerator. Today I pulled it out and started to look at them. One had a sprout sticking out and couple had the skins cracked. When I unpeeled the cracked ones I was surprised to notice that the bulb had also started to split and there was a smaller bulb with own skin inside. I broke the outside layer and found that the smaller bulb had already tiny roots growing. I then carefully cut some of the whole ones too and all of them had smaller plump bulbs in them. I have now planted some of these inner bulbs and will see how they grow. I will treat these as other garlic and keep them cool until later spring.
The outer layer of the whole ones was still good, so I used those in cooking. I'll maybe do that to the rest of them too before they all start splitting. I purchased these for intention to experiment planting them, but it is extra, if we get to eat one part and plant the other.

I am curious to see if these will result to regular multi cloved garlic or do they stay as single ones.

Sari

[meganp]

20170302_085622 by meganp08, on Flickr


Hello Svalli, several years ago I was given a no ID turban that I have been growing on from bulbils and it stubbornly continues to grow rounds for several seasons before it decides to finally divide. The larger rounds can exceed 5cm Our winters are likely to be much milder than yours - we only get snow to ground level two or three times a year and am at 300m above sea level. The lack of vernalisation is definitely not a factor, although having said that last season was much milder than usual and there was a higher percentage of rounds harvested.

[meganp]

OK Sari, here are photos of the turban rounds that I mentioned. They are all on a 2cm graph and the one at the top is a two cloved bulb

[svalli]

Megan, Those rounds are huge. Good for eating, but for planting material it would be nice to get them grow multiple cloves and scapes. Those look like the Chinese Solo garlic, so it is interesting to see, if my refrigerated Solos will grow to multiple cloves.

Last year I got quite many similar looking rounds from Spanish Morado. It is not really winter hardy, so last year I lost all fall planted ones and had only the ones which I refrigerated and planted during spring. Quite many of them got refrigerated only for couple of weeks and those produced rounds or rounds, which started to split, but clove skins were missing. So the short vernalization seemed to be the factor for preventing the normal bulb formation.

I'm not sure if it a Creole or Turban variety, since I started growing these from packet, which I purchased at a grocery store. It is very long storing, last fall I planted some cloves from 2015 harvest and the ones hanging in the kitchen have still edible cloves. I may need to toss them soon, since we have quite much 2016 harvest to eat and those are still juicy.

Attached is a photo of one of the divided Morado round. It was about same size as the rounds you have on the photo. I got also a lot such smaller rounds with two cloves without clove skins.


Sari

[meganp]

Hello Sari, the long keeping characteristic would make your spanish morado more in keeping with a creole variety - turbans have a very short dormancy, they are usually sprouting within 5 months for me. I wouldn't toss your old garlic, when my garlic starts to get dried out, I crush and dehydrate the cloves to make garlic powder. Even if you don't want to use the garlic powder for cooking, good to have on hand to make an insect and bug spray - I do the same with the excess bulbils that I don't replant
The rounds do eventually grow into segmented bulbs but I don't mind them staying as rounds because when they do divide, the bulbs are huge! The rounds are easy to plant, just pop the entire round into the ground and no need to worry about splitting them. There are usually enough properly divided bulbs for eating.

[Medbury Gardens]

svalli, Megan is the king of growing rounds where myself i dont have anywhere near the same success yet we are not that far apart, both inland though Megan has higher rainfall.

[PhilaGardener]

They all are very nice looking!

[svalli]

It is time to update about the experiment with the solo garlic. I planted the inner bulbs from the solo rounds in beginning of March to pots and kept them in cool location. In April the bulbs had grown roots but there was no leave growth. Finally two weeks ago something started happening and three of them have now green growth. I planted those from the tiny pots to bigger container today. If these will produce single bulbs, I may plant those this fall to see if that forces them to produce real heads next year.

Sari