Garlic

[SoyBean]

My fiance and I love garlic, so when we went shopping for veggies to grow, we picked up a garlic plant. Its called society garlic. Is this a kind of garlic you can use in cooking? How does it compare to other kinds of garlic?

Also, when we got it, it had a purple/pink flower bud on it. We let it bloom and now there are 3 purple/pink flowers on it and another flower bud about to bloom. Is this good or bad if we want garlic to use for cooking? How do you get the garlic to reproduce? I've heard you dig up the garlic bulb and pull the cloves apart. Then you plant the cloves seperately and they grow into bulbs themselves. Is this the right way or am I getting the wrong information?

 

[Tutter]

No. I've heard that people do eat it, but I've heard that they shouldn't, also. It's not a true garlic, though it smells garlicky. But it will give you pretty little flowers. Yes, it's divided, but I think when it's dormant.

Meanwhile, I think growing garlic is a good idea. We plant a lot each year. And, you've got lots of time to plan, since planting would be in the fall. (I prefer a fall planting.)

One good source of interesting garlic varieties, is Territorial Seeds. I've also gotten heads from other gardners, of old varieties, sometimes brought here from other countries.

We break apart the heads, carefully, and plant the largest cloves.

Work aged manure rich compost into the ground. Plant the cloves pointy end up. I plant biointensively 3" apart, but most people go more. Maybe 5"-6" apart, but you can look that up.

Plant with about 1/2" of soil over them, unless it's going to rain, then please put them a little deeper, to prevent them floating up. Maybe with an inch of soil above them.

Then, ignore until the next season, unless you don't get rain for a long while. In that case, water them.

An interesting thing about garlic is that it's on some kind of invisible time clock. It doesn't matter where you live, or whether the heads are in a warm drawer, or sitting out on a chilly dresser; once a certain date arrives, they begin to grow. You may well find yourself planting pre-sprouted garlic!

Good luck, garlic is delicious to eat, and fun to grow!

 

[SoyBean]

Next time we go to the store we will look up some garlic seeds. Are they hard to grow from seed?

So you plant them in the fall and leave them alone till next fall other than occasional watering when its not raining for a while?

 

[cheeptrick]

Soybean...
I wonder if you can purchase garlic from the store and plant it??
I have planted potatoes this way...straight from the Veggie Department at the grocery store!

 

[Reinbeau]

Society Garlic, or [ur=[url]http://www.floridata.com/ref/T/tulb_vio.cfm]Tulbaghia[/url] violacea[/url] isn't the kind of garlic we eat, although it is edible. What you want is true garlic, or Allium sativum. Garlic is grown by dividing a whole head of garlic into individual cloves and planting them about an inch deep, on six inch centers, usually in the fall like any other bulb. They set roots over the winter and sprout in the early spring. The timeline for my area is they start to turn brown and topple over sometime around July and are ready to harvest shortly thereafter.

I buy my garlic from a local supplier up at the Common Ground Fair in Unity, Maine every year, but you can get it from any good seed house or plant supplier, and local farm stores usually carry it. The stuff you get in the store probably won't do well, they treat it with growth retardant, unless you find it at an organic type store. For my area we grow the hard neck type, I think you might be able to grow more varieties than up here in the frozen north!

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

Growing garlic is pretty easy and we have grown it from the heads you buy at the grocery store. Mostly we do buy garlic sets elsewhere now though because (as Ann said) they don't grow as well.

Tutter outlined what to do perfectly. We plant ours in late-October after most of our veggies are out and forget about it. Watering occasionally. It comes back nicely and is ready mid-Summer.