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Post by kazedwards on Jul 15, 2014 1:43:16 GMT -5
So all of my garlic scapes have opened and I am curious to when I collect the bulbis. Do I need to just let them be until the plant starts to die down for the year or do I need to pick them before that? If I wait to long do they just fall out on their own?
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Post by 12540dumont on Jul 15, 2014 13:23:08 GMT -5
Kaze, I just wait till they start falling on their own and then collect them.
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Post by kazedwards on Jul 16, 2014 2:49:42 GMT -5
Thanks will do then
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coppice
gardener
gardening curmudgeon
Posts: 149
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Post by coppice on Jul 16, 2014 8:58:12 GMT -5
If you wait till the tops flop over you run the risk of seeding the garden.
When the whole scape first splits open is probably as long as I'm willing to wait.
I only leave the scape on when I want bulbils. It does diminish the size of cloves.
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Post by kazedwards on Jul 16, 2014 12:53:34 GMT -5
I'm am a little worried about that, but next year I am planing on spreading them out a bit. I have noticed deer tracks in every part of the garden but the garlic. So I hope to use it as a natural deer repellant.
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Post by richardw on Jul 16, 2014 15:21:53 GMT -5
Do the deer eat much in the garden?
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Post by kazedwards on Jul 16, 2014 15:38:45 GMT -5
Last year they got several bush bean plants and a few tomatoes. They also crushed several plants by walking on them. This year hasn't been bad but they did get the first slicing tomato right when it started to turn. Mainly just an annoyance so far that is.
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Post by steev on Jul 16, 2014 19:33:50 GMT -5
I'd think venison would go well with garlic.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jul 18, 2014 15:53:54 GMT -5
Quick garlic question of my own.
After three or so years, a two of my garlic plants this year FINALLY broke/split/divided/whatever term you use for when they go from a round to an actual head.
My question is as follows. To be clear, assuming I try and shoot for bigger heads off these next year (for different reasons for each I have some misgivings about the utility of continuing on with either of these two) I should re-plant the heads AS THEY ARE. That is, I do NOT break them up into their component cloves again. I'm assuming if I do that, they all go back to square one (making small rounds that will take another 5-6 years to divide again) If I leave them as is, I should get a single larger head next year right? (as opposed to a "fairy ring" of little garlic plants from all of the cloves now sprouting independently of each other.) Or have I already destroyed any chance of EVER getting a bigger head by harvesting in the first place i.e. is the only way to get a larger head on a garlic to leave it in place in the ground for years and somehow figure out a way to keep the original root system alive year in and year out for all that time (In which case, I might as well not bother; since doing that is impossible with my weather.) conditions.).
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Post by richardw on Jul 18, 2014 18:58:45 GMT -5
Wonder why it takes so long for you to get a sizeable garlic bulb
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Post by blueadzuki on Jul 18, 2014 20:18:49 GMT -5
A combination of limited space, iffy weather and several other things. Plus a lot of the orginal stock may have some gentic issues. That's why I said I have reservations about re-planting the heads I have. One of them is really thin and skinny with four cloves. What went wrong with that one is very clear, based on what other people said about when to harvest, it got pulled way too early and the cloves are severely underdeveloped. The other on the other hand is clearly from that head I took the photo of all that time ago (the one that could fit in a bottlecap, and seems to have inherited it's problem; that when it divides it 1. divides without putting on much actual extra mass from it's previos olive sized round and 2. goes straight from being a round of one to dividing into about 8-16 tiny cloves. Maybe, if I re-plant it the cloves will get bigger, but I have a nasty suspicion that, based on its previos behavior, it will either stay that size forever or suimply keep re-dividing until I have a head which is made up of dozens of tiny cloves. The original head had a hardneck, so I know that the stuff CAN make a scape, but knowing my luck it will turn out the top head it makes is the one I found in the bin later that year; the one with so many tiny bulbils on it that it looked like a red clover flower!
Of the rest it's a little murky. A lot of it is purpish (VERY purplish, some of the rounds look almost like minitature red onions when they are fresh!) So I have to assume some of them are decended from the rocambole bulbils in the orginal mix (which were also very dark) Beyond that I have no clue. Each year, I've taken whatever made it through the previos year and use that as the base for the next planting, add on any other likely looking stuff I've gotten and that's my planting stock. Somewhere in there is one with blue streaks on the skins, a couple softnecks with crow garlic like clove arrangements (big bulb in the middle that spawns small sub cloves off the sides) and at least one round that went in because it was the size of a normal sized head of garlic on it's own (no it wasn't elephant garlic). How many of those are STILL in the mix, and how many succumbed to freezes or just never came back, I have no clue.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 18, 2014 23:35:22 GMT -5
In my garden with the varieties of Allium sativum that I have grown... If I plant a bulb containing several cloves then each clove sends up it's own plant and makes it's own bulb, and each bulb ends up smaller than if cloves had been separated and grown about 4 inches apart. (Same applies to leaving the bulb in the ground... The available light/water/nutrients are divided among the competing plants and each one ends up smaller, even if the overall size of the clump is about the same.) For biggest bulbs and cloves I dig the garlic about this time of year, and replant it about the time our hard freezes are arriving but before deep snowcover. I replant the biggest cloves from the largest bulbs. Sucks to always be taking seconds to the farmer's market, but that's how it ends up for me. Some years if I miss getting the garlic in the ground before the winter snows come and stay, I will plant them during a early spring thaw or within a couple days of the snow melting. They do fine if planted early, but grow poorly if planting is delayed until mid-spring.
I specified the species above, because when I plant Elephant garlic, Allium ampeloprasum, the weight of bulbs/cloves harvested is smaller each year than what was planted so eventually it croaks.
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Post by kazedwards on Jul 22, 2014 1:07:09 GMT -5
Is there something wrong with this garlic? All of the other bulbis is purple.  Any help is appreciated! |
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Post by templeton on Jul 23, 2014 7:11:26 GMT -5
Quick garlic question of my own. After three or so years, a two of my garlic plants this year FINALLY broke/split/divided/whatever term you use for when they go from a round to an actual head. My question is as follows. To be clear, assuming I try and shoot for bigger heads off these next year (for different reasons for each I have some misgivings about the utility of continuing on with either of these two) I should re-plant the heads AS THEY ARE. That is, I do NOT break them up into their component cloves again. I'm assuming if I do that, they all go back to square one (making small rounds that will take another 5-6 years to divide again) If I leave them as is, I should get a single larger head next year right? (as opposed to a "fairy ring" of little garlic plants from all of the cloves now sprouting independently of each other.) Or have I already destroyed any chance of EVER getting a bigger head by harvesting in the first place i.e. is the only way to get a larger head on a garlic to leave it in place in the ground for years and somehow figure out a way to keep the original root system alive year in and year out for all that time (In which case, I might as well not bother; since doing that is impossible with my weather.) conditions.). In my experience, as joseph says, you need to split the multi clove head apart, and replant, about a hand span apart. I have had garlic varieties in my earlier growing years where either through maladaption to my growing conditions, or poor husbandry, the plants just got smaller and smaller over a few seasons until I got nothing. This was growing some new varieties next to some very successful varieties, so growing conditions were adequate for my normal varietes, suggesting I wasn't growing the new ones right, or they just weren't the right ones for my garden. I've never seen a garlic plant maintain a root system from one generation to the next. My guess is your varietes aren't right for your conditions. You could rethink your objective - look on these as great source of garlic greens...(I'm trying to think glass half full...  T |
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Post by paquebot on Jul 23, 2014 11:39:44 GMT -5
One does not have to wait until the bulbils are dry and falling off. As soon as the plants are harvested, cut the stems off at about 18" and put them in water. The bulbils will continue to mature just as if on a living plant. I have about 100 Martin's in a 5-gallon pail and they were not even splitting when plants were dug. Now they have mostly discarded their sheaths as they continue to develop.
What one gets from planting back bulbils depends upon the type. Rocamboles tend to have large bulbils and will produce a divided bulb in one season. Porcelains may take 3 years. For example, Martin's may have a bulbil almost to the size of a marble. That may give a 1½" divided bulb in one season. Music will have bulbils not much bigger than a grain of wheat and takes 3 years before a divided bulb is produced.
Martin
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