Garlic

[Cosmo spring garden]

We eat a lot of garlic. I use garlic daily. I think it adds a wonderful flavor. Most of it is pressed or dehydrated. I make garlic salt and its delicious! Last year I planted one row and I got about 7lbs of garlic. We've eaten 2lbs already (since June when I harvested). So this year I am planting 2 rows. I dont roast it but I've seen recipes where they preserve roasted garlic in olive oil. I want to try that! I love garlic.

 

[Zeedman]

@Zeedman , where do you get your garlic?

From SSE's Heritage Farm, via their Exchange. I was fortunate, because I ordered late, and they still had the varieties I wanted. A few more were from another collector, also an SSE member. These are all proven varieties that I had grown (and lost) before, when my collection was larger (36 varieties at one point). Provided this year's planting is successful, I may add a couple more... but I'll never again invest so heavily in a vegetatively propagated crop. Garlic on that scale is too much work, too easy to lose everything in a bad year, and too expensive to replace.

But if I ever find a fertile, well-drained site with good long-term access... who knows. I really enjoyed growing all of that garlic, and for many years considered it to be a relatively trouble-free crop. We were sharing garlic with our extended family, neighbors, and friends. Losing my entire collection 3 times (once to disease in 2013, once to last-minute loss of the site just before planting, once to Spring flooding by record rainfall) really dampened my enthusiasm. I certainly hope that chain of calamity has ended; as much as I love garlic, my tolerance for failure is not unlimited.

A photo from better times:

 

[flowerbug]

i just don't have that kind of room and like to keep it simple here with the one kind of hardneck garlic. it has never failed completely even in the heavy clay soil spots. after discovering that i could eat it as green garlic that vastly helped me with eradication efforts as then i just was eating what i was digging up (often as i was out there digging it ).

but @Zeedman i'm certainly envious of a nice collection like that but i need willing minions to do things like that and while Mom is willing to help out with some things she can't help with everything nor does she have the time as she has her own projects she's working on...

 

[flowerbug]

going outside now to get the garlic i need to break apart to get enough larger cloves to replant. the smaller cloves i'll peel and put in the fridge for storing until we eat them up. if they start sprouting i'll grind them up and drench them with lemon juice and freeze that. it works really well for cooking if i put it in small enough jars that Mom can just use the whole jar in a single shot.

 

[GottaGo]

We eat a lot of garlic. I use garlic daily. I think it adds a wonderful flavor. Most of it is pressed or dehydrated. I make garlic salt and its delicious! Last year I planted one row and I got about 7lbs of garlic. We've eaten 2lbs already (since June when I harvested). So this year I am planting 2 rows. I dont roast it but I've seen recipes where they preserve roasted garlic in olive oil. I want to try that! I love garlic.

When you say 'two rows', how many cloves is that?

 

[flowerbug]

got it all planted. ready for next season. i put in 40 large cloves for bulb eating garlic in one area and then off to the side of that i planted the green garlic (which was planted much deeper) - about 20 large cloves and another 75 large scapes (i had to use them up i'm sure not going to do anything else with them this year by the looks of things). i still have plenty of garlic left over.

 

[Zeedman]

but @Zeedman i'm certainly envious of a nice collection like that but i need willing minions to do things like that and while Mom is willing to help out with some things she can't help with everything nor does she have the time as she has her own projects she's working on...

Without 'minions' I couldn't have done that either. DW helps every year, we have a good system that goes pretty quickly... but when planting 500+ cloves, it still took a good afternoon. DD helped a couple times too, she has been helping us plant quite reliably, especially in the Spring rush.

The reason we grew so much - aside from giving a lot away - is that I was experimenting with different garlic varieties. I was really getting into it. A couple local chefs even agreed to test samples of different varieties, and to give me their culinary evaluation. I was also starting to experiment with growing bulbils, and sent some to another collector in Minnesota who was doing the same thing. Unfortunately, all those plans failed; I lost everything that year, and the other collector lost all of his the following year. I hope to resume some of that experimentation, if I can improve my methods to the point where garlic becomes reasonably reliable.

got it all planted. ready for next season. i put in 40 large cloves for bulb eating garlic in one area and then off to the side of that i planted the green garlic (which was planted much deeper) - about 20 large cloves and another 75 large scapes (i had to use them up i'm sure not going to do anything else with them this year by the looks of things). i still have plenty of garlic left over.

I like that idea. In my limited experiments with bulbils, I always broke them apart & planted them individually. It would be much easier to just plant the whole head; more space efficient, and it might compensate for winter losses. If enough of my garlic survives next year, I'll let a few scapes develop to try that.

 

[flowerbug]

...
I like that idea. In my limited experiments with bulbils, I always broke them apart & planted them individually. It would be much easier to just plant the whole head; more space efficient, and it might compensate for winter losses. If enough of my garlic survives next year, I'll let a few scapes develop to try that.

they were broken apart and what i did was dig the trench for planting the green garlic down deep enough and then i put down the large cloves and then i scattered the large scapes in there to make it a more dense stand of garlic than i planted for the bulb garlic. this way it can all grow and i'll dig it up and eat it. the large scapes were dime sized or bigger (the individual bulbules). when i leave the scapes go on the bigger cloves that i plant for the bulbs they make pretty big scapes too. they're delicious, i just wish i had the patience to do something with them all that i harvest each year other than burying them deeply enough that they can't get out and escape... i save the biggest ones and do use them or give them away for those who want to grow garlic, but this season i'm not sure there will be any seed swaps going on so i'm just planning on having to bury them all eventually to be worm food... the worms do like them...

i do find it strange that growing garlic can be unreliable. i've never had that experience. yes, i have had a few years of certain problems and some disease issues, but nothing that affect the whole crop to where i'd consider it a loss.

 

[PhilaGardener]

I've gotten into trouble at times too - in wet, rainy years I've lost all my garlic, onions and potatoes, even with raised beds. Too much clay soil and rain doesn't lead to good outcomes. That said, the good years can be great and keep me going but I am slowly cutting back.

 

[flowerbug]

I've gotten into trouble at times too - in wet, rainy years I've lost all my garlic, onions and potatoes, even with raised beds. Too much clay soil and rain doesn't lead to good outcomes. That said, the good years can be great and keep me going but I am slowly cutting back.

it all got very watered in last night with yet more rains. very soggy out there...

for some reason, even in our mostly clay subsoil out back in the north east garden the garlic did ok through the years, the problem that i made for myself though was that i scattered thousands of bulbules throughout that patch of alfalfa and birdsfoot trefoil that i planted for green manure harvest and for enriching that soil and feeding the worms.

the garlic in there did great each season but it was so hard to harvest that it took me years to start getting it weeded out and eaten. one year i harvested half a bucket of bulbules alone and a few buckets of bulbs, but they weren't huge. they were ok. i ate a bunch of garlic, gave away and made several gallons of garlic relish (which was all ground up garlic without much else added - very potent stuff).

the past few years we've been mowing that patch and i've not had to do any garlic scape harvesting but i have dug up a few clumps of garlic for green garlic to help the eradication effort along. this year with the north garden back in production i just planted the green garlic for next spring's harvest so i won't have to fight through the grass, trefoil and alfalfa roots. that was always a fun part of harvesting and trying to eradicate it, having to find it all among those roots.

my main garlic crops the past several years i've been planting inside the fenced gardens since those gardens have been kept fairly clear of weeds and i had room to rotate the plantings around.

i was pretty worried two season's ago with all the rain we had and the heavy soil but the garlic came through all that ok. this past summer the garlic got lifted in time and was in ok condition when i was checking it out yesterday. a few bulbs are always earlier than the others and the tunics might not be in the best of condition, but i'll just eat those first and i don't pick from those for replanting as i'm hoping to encourage better tunics and more uniform finishing up time, but i've been growing this garlic for 15 years at least and it keeps on going fine even in the backup patch where i completely ignore it for years other than cutting the scapes off it so it isn't spreading bulbules around.