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Post by olddutch on May 30, 2016 18:41:08 GMT -5
You would start out with one clove which would become a large bulb with multiple cloves the first year. Each clove would become a separate plant the second year and a few may become small divided bulbs. Each again would become separate plants the third year and most would only be a small marble-size round. By then there would no longer be enough nutrients left to support such a crowded mass and they would develop no bigger than green onions. Martin In general this is correct, except if you are leaving hardnecks in place, they will bulbil out and spread themselves around in clumps from the bulbils if not from the bulbs and may do this as one feral I found in nw Iowa did for nearly 30 years. The eventual bulbs I recollected were the size of a quarter but still had half a dozen tiny cloves as well as a full head of decent sized bulbils. When the scape stems finally fall over they space themselves out quite well. Over the past several years, by removing the scapes and autumn planting in rich beds, I have increased the bulb size by about 3 times. The bulbs are still only about middling average, nothing like the size of a Japanese or a Music, but comparing pretty well to VietNamese Red. Ferals get collected from all over the US; so I do not find the one I discovered to be all that unique. I would not necessarily expect your neglected garlics to stay put in one place, either, especially not if they were hardnecks. Softnecks are quite likely to run out, but I would expect some clumps to spread and eventually show open centers, and those that actually did scape by accident would likely produce bulbils and there are quite often neck bulbils in softnecks as well. Garlics survive complete neglect surprisingly well, often better than mediocre culture. I garden in Zone 4/5 in urban Minneapolis. The collected feral came from heavy good rich black dirt soil in zone 4 in far NW Iowa.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 30, 2016 18:52:25 GMT -5
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Post by olddutch on May 30, 2016 19:22:44 GMT -5
Thanks, I am an opinionated old coot. So bear with me or slap me down if I get out of hand. I have been gardening with my parents and alone now since I was old enough to walk which would have been a bit before 1950; all of that in central Iowa north to where I am now on the south side in Minneapolis proper. So I have been around the block a time or two but mostly in this part of the country. Current special interest is garlic and onions, and some of the lesser alliums. Current favorite garlic is Music. Has been almost from when I finally figured out how to grow garlic some years ago. Then Japanese, and I have collected one feral variety escaped from a late aunt of my mother's some thirty years ago and has been weedy in a sister's back yard every since. My other main hobby is fishing, especially crappies. There are a huge number in nearly every lake around this city. Gotta love it! Enough introduction. More about the plants would be better as would less of my ego... :-)
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Post by kazedwards on May 30, 2016 20:21:51 GMT -5
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Post by paquebot on May 30, 2016 20:57:53 GMT -5
Also a welcome from me but you may not quite know all about garlic. It is true that softnecks will crowd themselves out quicker than hardnecks but only because they have more cloves initially. All the hardecks need is one more year to become as abundant as a left softneck. Their bulbils are not a factor after the second or third year as few scapes are produced and those which do show up are very short. After 3 years, Music is a good one for garlic scallions as that's all that will ever be produced.
Martin
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Post by kazedwards on May 30, 2016 21:08:16 GMT -5
paquebot glad to see you on the forum. I've been wonder where some people went. I have not left garlic alone for years but I have with walking onions. They do get smaller but they don't die out. Most are nickel or quarter size. A few are bigger and smaller. They divide a lot more than garlic too. I suspect garlic to act that way. Slowly divide itself to point that the bulbs are closer to the surface and then kinda walk as it slowly crowds out. I'm not saying that they would be useable size but that it could perpetuate for many years.
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Post by steev on May 30, 2016 22:55:51 GMT -5
Hey, Olddutch; Coot Power!
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Post by philagardener on May 31, 2016 6:00:52 GMT -5
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Post by olddutch on May 31, 2016 10:41:48 GMT -5
It may very well be true that the original plants will run out. That is not uncommon for short lived perennials of which garlic seems to be one. BUT hardnecks will move around and continue to develop full bulbs from the bulbils that are left on abandoned plants. The bulbs will tend to be very tiny in many cases, especially as in the one I found where producing bulbils dramatically decreases bulb size. I have grown that one both ways and there is no comparison for ultimate bulb size. Those with bulbils left even in rich beds only developed bulbs to about half the size of those whose scapes were removed.
There is something or other very interesting, too, about when and what it takes to make a clove revert to a round. I had that happen to an entire (if small) bed that was June planted on a 6x6 inch grid last summer with cloves that were not vernalized. That bed never scaped, the plants never divided, and even here in zone 4 the plants never went dormant last winter and survived to pick up where they left off this spring. They are still going. I suspect that the Chinese solos that seemed to be a fad a few years ago are the result of some sort of technique related to that. But that really needs to be another thread.
BTW there is no truly wild garlic outside some parts of central Asia and even that is controversial. Anywhere in Europe, the Americas, Australia or the Pacific Islands "wild" garlic is always some sort of feral, and very often a persistent one at that.
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Post by reed on May 31, 2016 12:34:54 GMT -5
BTW there is no truly wild garlic outside some parts of central Asia and even that is controversial. Anywhere in Europe, the Americas, Australia or the Pacific Islands "wild" garlic is always some sort of feral, and very often a persistent one at that. When I first found the garlic I grow I thought that "wild garlic" is exactly what it was. I learned later that isn't the case. I found it in the woods by the foundation and chimney of what must have been an old log house, where it had survived for probably 100 years on its own. olddutch "and very often a persistent one at that" That's my favorite thing about it. It makes all the garlic we need and want and all I have to do (unless I want big cloves) is to not kill it out.
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Post by zeedman on May 31, 2016 15:53:16 GMT -5
There is feral garlic in the field to one side of my garden - chiefly because I threw over-developed scapes there for several years, not expecting them to survive. Those clumps must be at least 5-6 years old now, and survived the aster yellows which wiped out my collection in 2012. I first noticed them because they had numerous clusters of large bulbils, held high above the grass. The bulbs are very small rounds, but even competing against tall meadow grass, they continue to produce large, healthy bulbils. It seems I inadvertently created a backup to at least 2 different varieties! I am currently growing some of those bulbils, in hopes of identifying them. Feral clumps may be a good, long-term preservation strategy, as a backup to Fall plantings.
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Post by paquebot on Jun 3, 2016 21:09:31 GMT -5
The worse types of garlic for "grassing out" are Music and others like it. Problem is that they may have up to 200 bulbils smaller than a grain of rice. They take 4 years to become a decent-size bulb. Worse is that those bulbils may not all sprout the first year and remain dormant. I first grew Music in the late 1990s and have been trying to eliminate it for the past 10 years. I had Music plants which maxed at 78" from base of bulb to the bulbils. But when they come up as grassy clusters, may have one in 20 form a scape which tops at less than 2'. If that cluster then left, never another scape but lots of garlic scallions.
There are gardeners who claim that they can get a divided bulb in one year from bulbils. There are gardeners who claim that they give up after 3 years of no divided bulbs. The amazing thing is that they are both right. I could probably make quite a detailed list of which garlic varieties would last the longest or shortest before "grassing out". One year we left the scapes on 3 plants each of over 100 hardneck varieties. Without knowing what the bulbils look like, there are many which can not be distinguished from another. I classified them as (+), (o), and (-). They could well have been 1, 2, or 3. (+) were the big bulbils common on the rocambole. They were from large pea to marble for size. They also will produce a divided bulb in one season. (o) was maximum pea but bigger than 1/8th inch and usually round. Those usually produce up to an inch round the first year and divided the second. (-) was in the range of barley or wheat and often shaped like rice. They take a minimum 3 years to get a divided bulb. First year is a pea-size, second is marble-size, and third is a small divided bulb. Full size is at 4 years.
Look at my avatar. What I am holding are 3½" Martin's. (Only Estonian Red could match that and it's a totally different type.) For years, I only planted back the largest bulbils because that was all that was needed to get nice 2" bulbs. This is the season when I'm aiming for the first 4" bulb if I can get timely rains. There's 200 started from cloves and 100+ started from bulbils. All 300+ forming scapes right now. I'll know what I got about 5 weeks from now.
Martin
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Post by philagardener on Jun 4, 2016 6:17:22 GMT -5
It is interesting how garlic responds to such positive selection and good cultivation. I have a garlic originally from a Lancaster PA grower that started with 2" heads and surpassed 3" in my garden last year. However, this year the weather has been so strange that I think I'll be lucky to get that again. Glad your sound to be doing well!
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Post by fliver on Sept 6, 2017 21:00:14 GMT -5
Does it make any difference how the bulbils are oriented when they are planted? I removed several dozen from some garlic I forgot about a few years ago after my son was born (13 years ago) and just buried them shallowly in potting soil. I do have 2 sprouting now. Those two were not buried very deep apparently and came to rest on top of the soil surface.
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Post by paquebot on Sept 6, 2017 21:44:26 GMT -5
Bilbils don't care which end is up. Also don't even care if they are buried or not. They just need contact with the soil and moisture. Normally they will pull themselves down to about 2" deep if the soil is loose enough. To give them a head start, best to plant them 2" deep to start with and then they can go deeper if given a chance.
Martin
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