Garlic 2019

[GoDawgs]

I have garlic envy! Everybody's got such great garlic and mine was rather puny this year. Well, hopefully this too shall pass. I can't wait to see how the chilling experiment goes. And I'm going to re-read all my notes about the previous crop and this most recent one to see what, if anything was done differently. There's got to be something I missed.

Planting of Russian Inferno, Siberian, Maiskij and Shilla will happen October 15th.

[JRinPA]

Ohhh I like the look of those striped ones just left of center 2nd pic... it all looks great. How many different kinds and do you find each to have distinct flavors?

[svalli]

Originally Posted by JRinPA

Ohhh I like the look of those striped ones just left of center 2nd pic... it all looks great. How many different kinds and do you find each to have distinct flavors?

Those with shorter stems are Germidour, an artichoke variety from France. Even I have difficulties growing artichokes, because those bolt here easily, I may keep growing Germidour just because of the color. I got again real scapes in couple of them, so if anyone is willing to experiment, I can send some bulbils in mail.

This year I had about 40 varieties planted, which is getting to be too many. Some are new to me and everything grown now will get planted this fall. My taste buds are not so well developed to do any serious taste testing, but I have noticed big difference in storage length of varieties. Some should be used before end of the year and some keep until new crop is getting ready.

Sari

[bower]

I have the same feeling about Germidour... I'd grow it for the beautiful wrappers alone. My outdoor plants produced larger rounds this year as well, and that's okay because I hope to see a nice sized bulb from them. It was a very hard winter both wet and cold, and they came up early and valiantly. So I'm counting them to be nice and hardy as well.
We used our last bulb of porcelain ( Music or Argentina) a few days ago and they were still good, but I kept Persian Star and Chesnok Red for last, as they are smaller but also they've been my best keepers - some unused ones stayed hard well after the next harvest. Spanish Roja is one of the short keepers, as you said, must be used before the new year or soon after.

[Shrinkrap]

@GoDawgs

"I have garlic envy! Everybody's got such great garlic and mine was rather puny this year. Well, hopefully this too shall pass. I can't wait to see how the chilling experiment goes. And I'm going to re-read all my notes about the previous crop and this most recent one to see what, if anything was done differently. There's got to be something I missed. "


Me too!

I might have to try just one more time.

[GoDawgs]

Just to see what would happen if I planted garlic here in the spring, I stuck in eight cloves on March 5th. The tops were about all dry the other day so I dug the surviving five. They're shaped more like torpedo-type onions than bulbs and had not started dividing. In addition, they were soft. So much for that.

Meanwhile my planting stock for this fall is tucked away in a paper bag in a crisper and snoozing at 46 degrees.

[bower]

Interesting... I guess they couldn't take the heat. I bet you could grow great shallots, GoDawgs. They bolt when it's too cold. I'm looking at my patch and thinking, will I leave them for year three before I see a bulb?

[JRinPA]

Feed them to bower's moose. They looks like some super skinny flatheads.


I planted some here Spring last year...late Mar. give or take a week. They did okay, smallish, but formed. They really hit the ground running and were up in no time. Last spring it stayed cold though, bunch of my cauliflower struggled/died, so that may not be typical success for here. The harvest was a bit later, I remember.

[bower]

The best part about growing garlic in the northern woods, JR, is that moose and hares don't like em and won't bother em. The worst that can happen is moose walk through the beds after planting, and leave some of your garlic deep hoof down in a hole.

I had some early sprouts nipped by a hungry grouse this spring, but that's the first time I've seen any animal damage to alliums.

[bower]

So... I have marked my calendar the 14th Wednesday this week for the main crop garlic, being 3 weeks from the last harvest of scapes. Rereading here that PH you harvested a month after scapes - is that from scape emergence or scape harvest? I checked my dates and it is a month from scape emergence on that bed now.
The problem as usual, rain expected tuesday into wednesday, close to 10 mm all told. So deciding whether I should take them up tomorrow, or wait until friday - more rain expected Saturday.
We've had a really different year for weather. Very very wet July, right up to scape time it was wet, but since then it's been pretty hot and also pretty dry. The plants look to be drying down very quickly - I haven't watered them. Just had a look and there are no more than 5 green leaves on any of them, while some of the shorter (strangely shorter!) plants are down to 3 already. We usually have the opposite problem - leaves staying green because it's wet. I notice even some of the scape tips are turned brown and even drooping.

I guess I will have to check a few and decide.

[bjbebs]

Looks like your garlic could easily go another week. Your beds appear to be well drained, soil pulling away from the boards. Even with a couple rains totalling 1 inch, my guess is your beds would dry down quick. Too many variables to rely on the calendar. 3 weeks after all scapes are removed is only an estimate.

[bower]

Thank you bjbebs! I think you're right.

I dug down to take a look at one of the short plants which was down to three leaves. Saw that the bulb was split open, so I lifted that one and another eight in that corner. At best about 2 inches and another week would help. The soil is not as dry as I feared but a little rain shouldn't do any harm.

I have some problems as I expected, and caused by the wet conditions earlier on. The bulb on the short plant is small but also pink. Most of the others cleaned up nicely but two of them have the same pink-color and split wrappers which we see sometimes - I can't find anything like it on the internet but I know it's a wet weather problem. I also pulled two more of the short, stunted plants and although they looked pretty good on the outside, the pink effect was very clear on stripping them down. They may be okay anyway for short term, but the bigger bulbs have deep damage. So I am expecting as much as a third of my bulbs will have some splitting and damaged cloves.

I would normally panic and pull them all, but your reply made me stop and think. This damage was already in play by the time scapes formed and it became obvious that some plants were not normal height. So what are the chances that they will be any worse in a week? Unless it is really wet, they will probably be the same - some damaged and some not - only bigger.

[zipcode]

I have seen those side split garlics as well, on youtube and german forums and some studies. And they do become more red. My impression is that it is too much nitrogen at a certain age (when in full vegetative growth). I have seen somewhat similar splitting on my onions and the wrappers also became oddly red. It is dependent on the variety also of course. One of the studies named this problem as "premature flowering".

[bower]

Thanks zipcode! I am glad to hear we're not the only ones and some research has been done about it. I suppose that the wet weather during the vegetative growth may have also released too much N from granular ferts (bone meal) at the wrong time.

There are three different porcelain varieties in this bed and the three stunted plants I pulled were one of each. I haven't as yet ever seen this on garlic other than porcelain, iirc. My other varieties are in a different bed this year and don't appear affected (no stunted plants) but we will see come harvest time.

[PhilaGardener]

Those holes suggest some sort of insect damage, like garlic maggot, so the problem may be more than wet weather.