Seeking/Wanted Garlic Bulbils From 2016 Harvest

[kazedwards]

Jul 13, 2016 9:09:16 GMT -5 paquebot said:

I'll add another odd umbel behavior in addition to doubles and that is Medusa. The sheath never develops and there are green "snakes" up to an inch long all over it. It always larger than a normal umbel, the bulbils are larger, and the whole plant shorter. I had 5 such plants out of 300+ Martin's this year plus several unknown volunteers. When collecting bulbils, I've never kept them separate and nobody has ever reported an unusual amount of Medusas.

This is also not restricted to rocambole as I've also seen it in porcelain and purple stripe. With the smaller bulbils, and seemingly a "snake" for each one, they appear to be a solid green ball when growing.

Martin

I will sometime see what I thought was bulbils sprouting on my garlic. They do not grow that long though. Is that what your talking about Martin?

[paquebot]

Zach, Medusa heads do indeed look like they are sprouting. From a distance they look almost like topsetting onions. The green "snakes" don't last long after the scape is cut as they quickly dry and shrivel to "hairs" instead of "snakes".

With all umbels having shed their sheaths today, I note 4 which are doubles. Thus it would appear that percentage of Medusas and doubles are about the same in Martin's, at least for this harvest.

Martin

[reed]

Is this anything like what the Medusas look like? Most of mine looked like this to some degree. They did have the normal sheath covering though.

[paquebot]

Reed, your picture looks like something with a lot of green snakes, right? That's close to a Medusa head. Difference is that they develop on shorter stems than normal and I don't think that the sheath has a point. Not being held in place by a sheath, those green snakes in your picture would be growing outwards in all directions. Also, being exposed so long, some of the bulbils would have a sprout on them. Don't recall ever seeing a picture of one on the Internet but probably one somewhere.

Martin

[zeedman]

My update...

Finished harvesting all of the garlic yesterday, but have left some of each hardneck in the ground to continue bulbil development. Some of the bulbils are really huge this year.

Of the stem cloves that formed on most of my artichoke varieties last year, large numbers of 3 varieties were planted in the main garlic bed. Survival was very high, and most formed not rounds, but small bulbs. A few of the larger stem cloves even formed fairly good sized bulbs. Much better results than I expected. I intend to conduct an experiment for the 2016/2017 planting, to see if I can intentionally stimulate stem clove development... such a process would offer hope for cleaning up artichoke varieties contaminated with GBN or soil-borne diseases.

I planted a block of the "feral" garlic bulbils last Fall, and they too did much better than I expected. They all formed scapes, and even small bulbils of their own! I was so fascinated by them that I neglected to cut off some of the scapes, to see how big the bulbs would get. I will be digging them up shortly, and hope to post a photo. The "feral" patch they came from is incredibly vigorous this year, and is really something to see... grass 3 feet tall, with dozens of fat scapes poking out over the top. I should be able to harvest several hundred large bulbils this year from that patch.

[reed]

toomanyirons, why do you favor the hard neck types? Can you give some detail on the differences between the different kinds? 

[paquebot]

A prime reason for preferring hardnecks over softnecks is size of cloves. Until about 15 years ago, most commercial garlic was softneck. Two industries were involved, garlic growers and garlic press producers. Most softneck cloves fit in a garlic press. TV chefs discovered hardnecks with their big cloves and were sliced rather than mashed. Now one can find both types in many markets.

Martin

[reed]

Thanks for the great info. I highly value the opinions of folks who obviously know more than I do about something. I think I want to get more serious about growing garlic and get some more kinds.

I tilled up a new spot outside the fences and have been dumping weeds and compost and grass clippings on it to become a garlic patch this fall. I keep a piece of clear plastic on it and the sun is doing a pretty good job of sterilizing it. It will be interesting to see how it grows in a properly prepared environment. Just this year by spacing it out a little and keeping it weeded it grew the biggest bulbils I ever saw it have. 

[reed]

Here is what my garlic bulbils look like this year. They are larger than I'v seen before. I used the dime for scale, it's a little bigger than 1/2 inch. The brown ones are nice and firm, I think they are that color cause they got pushed off the umbel as they grew. The tiny ones in the bottle cap are ones that grew on secondary umbels or individually on what looked like flower stems. I had more and larger of those but didn't think anything special about them and they got mixed in with the rest.



Silly question, which end is going to sprout roots? I'm assuming the end that was attached, never paid attention before, mostly letting it plant itself. 

[add] Another silly question. Why do we wait till fall to plant? The ones I left to fall off on their own are already growing. 

[philagardener]

So then by looking at the ones that are growing, you already have the answer to your first question 

Second question - why wait as those birthdays pass? You have lots of experimental material on hand to plant out at intervals and see what happens!  I think the ones that escaped are showing their preference.

[reed]

Thanks for the info. I'll hold off on planting some for bulb harvest next year but have plenty so will also go ahead and sow some for winter eating. The little bulbs and leaves are good in winter dishes. I have seen leaf tips get burned by cold once in a while but it is for the most part evergreen here.

[paquebot]

When I first started growing garlic in 1983, had an old Bavarian lady for a neighbor. In earlier times, they had a fancy restaurant. There must have been bulbils available somewhere in the food supply chain as they were standard in their kitchen. She told me that they would merely be crushed and added to their stock broth. No worry about the skins as it was strained.

Martin