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Post by bluelacedredhead on Jul 18, 2012 7:16:44 GMT -5
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edwin
gardener
Posts: 141
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Post by edwin on Jul 18, 2012 17:54:11 GMT -5
No - at first I thought it was the same thing - onion maggots. Didn't see any maggots when pulling them apart. I am still wondering if they were destroyed by maggots. Ferdzy may have different ideas.
Interestingly both beds were treated with predatory nematodes for the last 3 seasons. I am still scratching my head over it - both store bought and no spread to other garlic.
While we weren't planning on it, next year's bed will be sprayed with nematodes.
Ottawagardener - the cloves we are sending you comes from a third bed that had no problems.
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Post by ferdzy on Jul 18, 2012 18:07:56 GMT -5
No, I agree with edwin. It really didn't look like that. I spent a while looking at all sorts of 'orrible garlic disease porn, but just couldn't match it up, lol.
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James
grub
Greetings from Utah -- James
Posts: 93
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Post by James on Oct 26, 2012 20:00:57 GMT -5
Each leaf of the garlic is attached to a layer of papery covering on the bulb. The leaves will begin to die as time goes on and the bottom leaves die first. As the leaf dies the covering layer associated with that leaf deteriorates too. The best time to harvest is when there are still 3 green leaves left. Now you have 3 covering layers to hold the bulb together. If you wait until all the leaves are dead, the covering layers will all be degraded too and your bulbs will be individual cloves held at the attachment point, but with little or no covering layers. .
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Post by Drahkk on Oct 26, 2012 21:29:10 GMT -5
Good to know. I've been pulling too early, when only the first few leaves have browned. Now I'm anxious to see how big they can get when allowed a few extra weeks in the ground!
MB
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Post by paquebot on Oct 26, 2012 22:52:42 GMT -5
They won't get any bigger once the lower leaves begin to die. Main advantage to waiting until a few more are dead is curing time. The internal layers of skin will dry quicker if their corresponding leaves are also drying.
Martin
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Post by templeton on Oct 26, 2012 23:17:20 GMT -5
Good to know Martin. I'm just about to harvest my earliest variety in the next week or so. Hot weather coming early next week, so it might nudge them along a bit more quickly.
T
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Post by blueadzuki on Jun 16, 2013 15:59:57 GMT -5
At this point I have a sort of conundrum. The two answers I have herd in this thread to when to harvest my garlic is "when about 6 leaves are dead" and "when only about 3 are alive. Now here's my problem; almost none (in fact quite possibly none) of my garlic even HAS six leaves. A few of the biggest have 5, but most have 4 or even only 3 (they're very smallish plants and probably rounds underground). So how do I make the determination. If I go with 3 green leaves, than most of the stuff should be harvested now, when NO leaves have died. I felt around the base of one of the plants and there is a bulge, about the size of a cocktail onion (though bearing in mind how tiny the stuff that went in was, cocktail onion is a pretty good increase, and quite possibly as big a bottom as this garlic can get (remember that the full split 12 clove head fit confortably on a quarter). So what's a good number of dead leaves in my case? one? two? do I leave the plants until the whole top dies down and risk having it all rot (actually, given the kind of rain we've been having, having the whole thing rot would be a near certainty). Do I not harvest at all this year, on the ground that sitting where they are for a few extra years might make them get a bit bigger (I really don't like this idea since 1. I really want to move them to the actual ground to size up, the pot where they are is too small 2. given how small they are, every time I leave them in over the winter about 4/5 run out of stored energy before spring comes and flat out die, so I wind up with less than I had the previos year) opinions
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jun 16, 2013 20:30:52 GMT -5
If they just form a round then the green tops will flop like an onion. That's when you pull them. If they have a scape I'd just pull them when the bottom leaf starts to yellow. Tiny garlic can take a couple years to acclimate and begin sizing up. Gray sent me some Xian turban garlic and two different types of creole. They sure look sad this year but I expect them to do much better after a few seasons.
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Post by paquebot on Jun 16, 2013 21:34:18 GMT -5
All 17 hardneck varieties here have 7 leaves. When 3 or 4 are yellow and dying, that's when they should come up. I've heard of some gardeners taking them up as soon as those leaves start showing yellow but then require fans to dry them.
I know that it does not apply to everyone here but my garlic is going to be late and big. First scape showed up on 14 June, 10 to 14 days later than normal. That computes to at least a month before maturity. Size is going to be big due to slower and longer growth period.
Martin
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Post by blueadzuki on Jun 16, 2013 22:25:39 GMT -5
If they just form a round then the green tops will flop like an onion. That's when you pull them. If they have a scape I'd just pull them when the bottom leaf starts to yellow. Tiny garlic can take a couple years to acclimate and begin sizing up. Gray sent me some Xian turban garlic and two different types of creole. They sure look sad this year but I expect them to do much better after a few seasons. I don't see scapes, and given that I think it is scape season at the local FM's I tend to think that, if they were going to make them this year, there'd be signs by now. So I guess I'll just wait until they collapse. Next year should be really fun; that's when I try and plant out the bulbils I got two years ago. Wonder how many years it'll take for those (each of which is about the size of a sesame seed) to reach an edible size (assuming I don't end up confusing them with the crow garlic that grows everywhere and pull them up as weeds.) |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 16, 2013 23:14:10 GMT -5
Some of my garlic had fairly well developed scapes about June 10th. I don't know how that compares to other years. I counted leaves a few minutes ago. There were anywhere between 6 and 9 leaves per plant before the scapes formed. Some of the hard-neck have as many as 10 leaves already with no sign of scapes forming. I expect as much as a 6 week or more difference in flowering time between the earliest and the latest.
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Post by steev on Jun 16, 2013 23:25:47 GMT -5
Good questions, given that I have six pots of "seed-garlic" from Joseph that are starting to look "puny". I'm thinking I'll let them dry out until Fall, when I'll see what's in the pots and work from there.
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Post by paquebot on Jun 17, 2013 21:47:17 GMT -5
Wonder how many years it'll take for those (each of which is about the size of a sesame seed) to reach an edible size (assuming I don't end up confusing them with the crow garlic that grows everywhere and pull them up as weeds.) With that type it will take 3 or 4 seasons depending upon what you consider as edible. First year will give you a round about the size of a pea. Second year will result in a large marble. Third year will produce a small divided bulb. Fourth year will have what you would expect from planting regular cloves. Martin |
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Post by blueadzuki on Jun 17, 2013 22:01:52 GMT -5
Wonder how many years it'll take for those (each of which is about the size of a sesame seed) to reach an edible size (assuming I don't end up confusing them with the crow garlic that grows everywhere and pull them up as weeds.) With that type it will take 3 or 4 seasons depending upon what you consider as edible. First year will give you a round about the size of a pea. Second year will result in a large marble. Third year will produce a small divided bulb. Fourth year will have what you would expect from planting regular cloves. Martin Maybe but statistically it's not likely to last past season 1. Our winters tend to come with a brief warmer snap (warm enough to wake the bulbs mechanisms up and get it eating up it's stored food followed by a long return of cold that keeps the leaves from taking off, so very small garlics tend to simpy starve themselves to death. Maybe I just strew them in the big patch; now that I have all but given up on trying to plant corn, there's precios little else it can be used for. |
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