Topic: Elephant Garlic

[philistine]

I have been building up my stock of elephant garlic cloves and now have about 200, unfortunately
this year I haven't got round to planting them and made not find the time. Could I store them in the freezer to plant later in September.

[artichoke]

I don't know about freezing fleshy things like elephant garlic, then hoping they'll grow.....my instinct is that freezing them would destroy them. Maybe someone else knows for sure? If they are anything like the elephant garlics I have kept back for eating, they keep well anyway, much better than ordinary garlic.

Why not devote yourself to eating them??? Store some in a dry airy place for later planting, and use the rest underneath roasts for making gravy, mashed into potatoes, liquidised into soups, roasted with potatoes and onions and peppers, everything you can think of. Two hundred (cloves not whole heads???) is a lot - I wish mine would bulk up as much as that, but I can't resist eating them.

[galina]

I have been building up my stock of elephant garlic cloves and now have about 200, unfortunately
this year I haven't got round to planting them and made not find the time. Could I store them in the freezer to plant later in September.

Just checking - these cloves were harvested in late summer 2014?  Yes they keep well, but to expect them to keep until September might be pushing it somewhat.  However, garlic (including Elephant garlic) that hasn't been grown for long enough before it is time to wither its foliage in late summer, will produce a single round bulb, rather than split into cloves.  You can plant now and harvest 200 'rounds', then eat most of them and replant however many you would like in October 2015 for a harvest of fully split bulbs with cloves in summer 2016.

I would not chance freezing them or letting them store until September this year.

With the bulbs you also get, bulblets on elephant garlic.  These hang off the bulbs (but break off easily).  They are covered in light brown, very tough, outer material and have a sharp point at the top.   I would plant these up either in a pot or in a separate area (close together) and label.  These also need two years to form fully divided bulbs.  You can (with care, sharp point and tough outer) split the outer or take it off altogether with a paring knife to help with 'germination'.  It takes longer in the ground to rot off that tough outer casing.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Plant them and they'll grow. Alternatively, keep them cool (not frozen) and see how many survive. I'd put some in now to be on the safe side.