Topic: Advice

[meter rat]

Hi all,

I need some advice to some questions.

1. Whats the difference between hardneck and soft neck garlic?
2. We're prepairing the remaider of our beds for next spring planting. We have an ample supply of fresh horse poo, from the horses in the field (Poo taken with the permission of the horse owners) Will it be rotted in time to plant in the spring or will it be too fresh, still.

Silly question, I know, and they've probably been asked before, so I apologise in advance for my ignorance. And any other question I will ask in future.  ;D

Regards

[goodlife]

Diffence is..that hardneck garlic does literally have hard neck.. ;D
soft necks don't have hard inner core inside the bulb..so they are more suitable for pleating..if you fancy doing so.
Softnecks are said to store longer than hardneck.
BUT...there is varieties of harnecks that do store as long as soft ones.
Hardnecks tend to have fewer but larger cloves per bulb.
Hardnecks need to be planted in late autumn for them to able to produce decent size cloves where as soft necks can be planted late winter..but then they will not crop untill late summer/early autumn...and hardnecks are ready for harvest earlier than softnecks.
Harnecks will produce flower stem..no flowers but tiny little bulbils on them that can be used various ways.

[meter rat]

Thanks for the reply.

So if ibrought some hardneck veriaties I could plant them now, and some softneck latter, say late November, earley December. That should give me a crop all year? Or am I better of sticking to one type?

[Melbourne12]

I won't attempt to add to that complete explanation of garlics!

But on the subject of horse manure, you'd be much better putting it into a nice pile for at least a year, perhaps with a bit of weed membrane as a cover, before digging it in.

[Digeroo]

Welcome to A4A meter rat.  Nice to have horse manure but do check it out first by growing some broad beans on it.

[meter rat]

Opps! I've already dug alot in. Every bdy goes on about doing a bean test. Why? exactley do I need to do that? What should I be looking for? Told you I was green.

[grawrc]

over the last few years a lot of crops have been adversely affected by aminopyralid  - a weed killer which goes a process through the guts of grazing animals and comes out the other end still active. It affects quite a few crops and ruins them. Beans are affected but because they grow quickly you can see if there is a problem before using the manure on all your ground.

[goodlife]

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So if ibrought some hardneck veriaties I could plant them now, and some softneck latter, say late November, earley December. That should give me a crop all year? Or am I better of sticking to one type?
I might made it sound bit complicated..but in practice..pick what ever varieties take your fancy..bang them all in from October onwards-during November..and they will crop fine.. ;) Then you don't need to mess about with different types..and you can always use them according how they look..if they start to produce green growth in storage..use them first..
But yes..your thinking with the planting is not far off..but you won't get quite all year round garlic supply even then. Right softneck varieties may extend the storage time only by month or two at best. If you want your garlic supply last full year..then you need to do something to your garlic..dry, freeze etc.
There is many ways eating garlic..all the green growth is edible too..so if you plant more than you actually would need as bulbs..some you can eat as 'fresh greens'...that way you can have garlic to eat all year round.. ;)

[meter rat]

Should be alright with the manure the horses and our allotment are on an organic farm.
Thank you for the explanation. As for the garlic, that's kind of what i did last year, more by default than knowledge. but as we only had a small piece of ground a my farthers we only got a small amount. This year we are hoping to grow alot more as we both enjoy garlic. Cooking with it I'm fine with, just need to make sure we're growing correctly. I'm sure as we go on there will a lot more questions.