True Garlic Seed

[joeyd]

Speaking of flies, does anyone know anything to do for onion flies? They seem to like to attack my garlic.

[oldmobie]

Are garlic scapes the little kremlin tower things at the top, or the stems that hold them up? Either way, some of my little kremlin towers are starting to split.





So I've started to remove the bulbils. Flowers shouldn't be far behind.

[moloch]

Jun 23, 2018 18:09:27 GMT -5 oldmobie said:

Are garlic scapes the little kremlin tower things at the top, or the stems that hold them up? Either way, some of my little kremlin towers are starting to split.

I believe scape refers to then stem and everything, whereas umbel refers to only the top portion with bulbils and flowers.

[richardw]

A few of you will already know via FB groups but those not i'm really happy to report with the news that the growing of intentionally grown TGS has finally happened here in New Zealand after '3 years of trying and failing'. Thanks to having called on quite a number of volunteer growers one lady i give cloves to managed seed, we will call her Gertrude as she is one of those quiet shy type who didnt want her name added. Gertrude for what ever reason didnt contact the group with the news but instead wrapped the seed heads in paper and put it in a open container outside, this container ended up catching a fair amount of rainfall and twice she tipped out dark coloured water, the seed had seen a number of frosts (-4 deg C) as well. A friend of hers was having a look at her garden (May - June) and she asked what was in that container to which Gertrude explained what it was, the friend said," you must sow it" thank goodness she did because that seed would have rotted in the end. Gertrude finally sowed the seed still in the seed head which many germinated. Gertrude a few days later contacted me through FB messenger to let me know and has given me all the seedlings, i sorted through every one and have potted them one seedling per pot, i estimate there about 50 strong seedlings that should grow, with another 50 weaker plants that are touch and go, threw out 100+ no hopers and heaps with no base or roots to them.

But there is one single seedling that stood out from all others, it had two and bit roots that were nicely white and thick, a day after been potted this seeding is standing proud like Thump would at one of his nostril display public appearances.

 

[moloch]

Although a flock of nematodes bit into about two-thirds of the 80 or so cloves I planted, I managed to save most of the scapes and keep them alive long enough to make a few seeds.  I had planted 7 cloves from each of 11 varieties.  I found 2-10 seeds from most of the species I planted, but 3 of them stood out.

I think I only had 2 Susan Delafield umbels survive to maturity, but seed they did.  At least half of the flowers had a seed, and the average had 2-3 seeds in them.

I believe all of my Red Rezan garlics survived the nematode infestation.  Every garlic in the rows of garlic on both sides of them were destroyed by nematodes, but the Red Rezan were left untouched.  It looks like they might be somewhat resistant to whatever species infested my garden. These ones averaged 1-2 seeds per flower, with around half producing seeds.

Chesnok Red also did well with only 3 small umbels producing ~60 seeds.  These were planted at the edge of the garden and did not seem to do quite at well.  The umbils were smaller than they were last year, and only had 20-50 flowers on them.  Around half of the flowers had seeds, so it was probably more to do with their location in my garden than the genetics for producing fewer seeds than the other 2 pictured.

[joeyd]

I tried putting the putting the scapes in vases because I was moving, but they all died without any seed. Well, I try again next year.

[meganp]

What a result Moloch, well done. Am super envious.

[richardw]

Yes, good work Moloch.

joeyd - i know how you feel, yet to jump that hurdle personally myself

[moloch]

I checked on the TGS I planted this spring, and one of them is pushing up a small scape.

This came from one of Ivan Buddenhagen's seeds that I started indoors in February

Does that mean it went from seed to bulb in ~7 months?

Should I cut the scape off to try making the bulb bigger, or leave it on and try to get a few seeds from it?

Has anyone tried getting seeds from spring-planted garlic?

[richardw]

How many plants do you have with scapes?.

Are they hothouse grown?.

[moloch]

I grew it indoors for about 2 months before planting outside in the spring.

I have about 20 seedlings, but only 1 produced a scape so far. Most of the seeds were sown in the garden in spring. Those tended to sprout in groups of 2-3 within an inch of each other, so those are smaller.

I figure I will dig up this bulb to replant the cloves soon anyway, so maybe it is better to just cut it off and try for seeds from it next year?

[richardw]

Youve grown your seedlings much the same as i'm growing mine which are still inside the tunnelhouse and will stay there till the end of the month, they will be three months old then.

[richardw]

It now appears that the lady who received TGS grown cloves from me made a mistake and picked a seed head from some kind of onion instead going by the round leaf and not flat.

Feeling rather disappointed ....oh well

[oldmobie]

I hung my scapes upside down to dry in a paper bag as recommended by kazedwards . I opened it up today for processing and found seeds in the bottom!



Threshing the flower heads yielded some more. Here's the whole group.

[kazedwards]

Jan 13, 2019 22:01:32 GMT -5 oldmobie said:

I hung my scapes upside down to dry in a paper bag as recommended by kazedwards . I opened it up today for processing and found seeds in the bottom!



Threshing the flower heads yielded some more. Here's the whole group.

Congrats Oldmobie!