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Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: plotstoeat on October 23, 2019, 18:35:49

Title: garlic
Post by: plotstoeat on October 23, 2019, 18:35:49
Having problems finding garlic bulbs this year. Think Wilko have stopped selling them. I believe Dobbies have a good selection but nearest store is 20 miles. Any suggestions?
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Vetivert on October 23, 2019, 20:45:18
If you aren't averse to ordering online or mail order, Kings Seeds has a decent selection. I plan on ordering mine from there.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Pescador on October 24, 2019, 07:49:41
Try This.  https://www.dtbrownseeds.co.uk/Onions-Garlic-1/
I've just received 2 bulbs of Extra Early Wight, and look lovely large plump bulbs.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Plot22 on October 24, 2019, 08:01:14
Our local Wilko's has garlic for sale but the bulbs are tiny . I would not buy them. Remember the bigger the clove the bigger the final bulb. I save my own biggest bulbs from this years crop to set in fact yesterday I set 200 including 30 elephant garlic . The elephant garlic alone would have cost me £45 . Try D.T. Brown, T & M, Suttons, the Isle of Wight Garlic Farm take your pick.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Paulh on October 24, 2019, 08:49:57
I buy online from Tamar Organic as they stock "Sprint" my preferred variety which the bigger suppliers don't have. They also have seed varieties (like butternut "Tiana") that I don't see elsewhere.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: InfraDig on October 24, 2019, 09:34:21
I was surprised to read Charles Dowding suggesting "even use supermarket garlic".
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: InfraDig on October 24, 2019, 09:34:49
I was surprised to read Charles Dowding suggesting "even use supermarket garlic".
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Tee Gee on October 24, 2019, 12:45:17
Quote
I was surprised to read Charles Dowding suggesting "even use supermarket garlic".

Why?

This is what I will be planting out within the next couple of days!

I do this every two or three years  and it generally works out quite well.

Then next year I will save the best of the bulbs for the following season (subject to the quality of the bulbs) as I have done here with the Elephant Garlic

Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Beersmith on October 25, 2019, 00:02:58
I am lucky. I have a nearby workers cooperative that sells large bulbs at 3 for £2. Choice of varieties including hard and soft kneck.  Many of the main seed suppliers prices are much more expensive.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: gray1720 on October 26, 2019, 17:56:06
I bought mine from the Charlton Park nursery in Wantage, on the off chance you might be nearby. Four nice bulbs for little more than the cost of one from IoW. Noow if it would just stop raining enough to let me get the d**n things in...

Adrian
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Deb P on October 26, 2019, 20:35:31
Got mine from Franchi this year, thought I'd give them a go as their seeds are very reliable.....
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: BarriedaleNick on October 27, 2019, 08:43:00
I found a nice selection of Garlic on eBay..

"Garlic bulbs - 9 islands collection. This is a collection of 9 garlic bulbs personally collected by me from various Mediterranean and Atlantic islands and grown on in UK. These include Greece, Menorca, Majorca, Corsica, Cyprus, canary islands and Azores."

Interesting and fun to grow different varieties than you would normally find..
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Tiny Clanger on February 14, 2020, 12:23:10
I got mine last autumn from Kings - they had a special on.  I tend to plant in October and the garlic is well up now.  Kings give discount to the individual who has an allotment as well as buying through your allotment association.  Check on line. There are quite a few suppliers.  Franchi's stuff is pricey but reliable.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: ruud on October 11, 2020, 12:56:18
here a link for garlic bulbs  https://www.levenvanhetland.nl/knoflook/
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Obelixx on May 28, 2021, 14:42:02
I have a harvesting question.   I planted garlic in December and it has done well so far.  The foliage is starting to turn brown at the top.

I have now removed the insect netting from the hoops - put on to keep the chooks off the beds while it grew - so the sun can get to it and ripen the bulbs.   last year we had a heatwave and drought all thru April and May and the harvest was poor.  I'd like to do better this year.

How brown should the foliage and stem be before I harvest it?  I don't want to let it get so far it doesn't store well as I've planted double quantities this year.   
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Paulh on May 28, 2021, 20:56:38
One for the experts. The drivers for me are to get it up before rust and white rot set in and to clear space for the succession planting!

But given where you are, I'd have thought you could get it up as soon as it starts dying back because the bulbs aren't going to do any more and you have the weather to dry them off?
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Obelixx on May 28, 2021, 21:02:27
Thanks but today has been the first warm, dry shorts day of the year and this is a brand new veg plot on former pasture so no rust or white rot - yet.

Last year's early heat and drought meant the garlic and onion harvest were poor and didn't store well.   I'd quite like fatter bulbs this year. 
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Paulh on May 28, 2021, 21:14:52
Won't it be the rain that you've had that has been helping the bulbs swell, but if the foliage is now dying off, they are not going to do much more? But you are not going to lose anything by leaving them where they are if disease is not an issue?
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Obelixx on May 28, 2021, 22:01:17
Dunno.  I'm a novice at garlic cos in my last garden - rural central Belgium - it was always frozen to a mush in hard winters and I gave up.

The first year I grew it here it was wonderful.  The next year was last year and it and the onion crop were hit by that early heat and drought so I really have no sensible comparisons.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: JanG on May 29, 2021, 05:56:21
I’ve been looking into this too, and advice seems to vary somewhat. It seems to be a question of how many bottom leaves die off. I’ve seen suggestions that it could be up to half, with five or six having gone brown and five or six at the top still remaining green. Other sources say that it’s best to let only two bottom leaves die and pick when the third is dying down.

I don’t know what to make of foliage going brown at the top, as advice seems to concentrate on lower leaves dying, as these correspond with the bulb wrappers below ground.

With hardneck garlic I believe the idea is to harvest about a month after the scapes appear but I assume this is softneck garlic you’re wondering about.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Obelixx on May 29, 2021, 08:44:45
Thanks JanG.  I have no idea whether it's soft or hard neck.  I shall have to try and find the label and look it up.   
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Tiny Clanger on May 29, 2021, 11:18:03
Hi Obelix, We are in sunny North Warwickshire.  My garlic is starting to die back on the outermost leaves.  I will wait until the outer leaves have died right back.  The rest of the leaves will probably still be green.  So looks like I will be waiting to harvest end of June earliest.  Hopefully the weather will be good enough to dry the garlic off outside.  :wave:
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Obelixx on June 27, 2021, 15:29:26
Back again.  I've just been out harvesting some more  of the garlic and hanging it to dry on a Tee Gee inspired system of wires across a wooden pallet on a table base.   I harvested some a couple of weeks ago but ran out of time before a 10 day trip to Namur and that was small but well formed and has dried nicely.

The rain last week has helped fatten some of the bulbs I harvested today but others are very small, tho firm, and some have "bulbs" forming higher up the stem. 

Is this due to a problem with cultivation?  weather?  variety?   How can I improve my crop next year?   I do rotation, use home-made compost and pelleted chicken manure to replenish the soil between every crop and we haven't been short of rain this year except in April when it was also cold.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Beersmith on July 05, 2021, 21:15:40
Thanks JanG.  I have no idea whether it's soft or hard neck.  I shall have to try and find the label and look it up.

There is a good possibility you could tell them apart simply by observing the bulbs and how they have grown. Hardneck does literally have a solid central neck, usually producing a scape. Softneck doesn't.

The books suggest hardneck has better tolerance to cold, has a slightly better flavour and bigger cloves, whereas softneck keeps better. I've always found the differences to be fairly marginal.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: JanG on July 06, 2021, 06:54:43


The rain last week has helped fatten some of the bulbs I harvested today but others are very small, tho firm, and some have "bulbs" forming higher up the stem. 

Is this due to a problem with cultivation?  weather?  variety?   How can I improve my crop next year?   I do rotation, use home-made compost and pelleted chicken manure to replenish the soil between every crop and we haven't been short of rain this year except in April when it was also cold.

I think bulbils forming up the stem is fairly normal and some varieties are more prone to it than others.

I’ve had a bit of a garlic thing this year and grown quite a lot of different varieties. And I would say variety does make quite a difference. For example, one variety I grew was Iberian Wight and the plants and resulting bulbs were very large and impressive growing side by side with other much smaller varieties.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Obelixx on July 06, 2021, 13:59:42
Thanks both.   There is a limited range on sale in shops here so I may have to try ordering online for next year's crop after researching varieties.

I have now harvested all the garlic and dried it and stored it.  Some lovely fat bulbs again and some much smaller and some with bulbs forming up the stems which is not something I've had before.  Clearly lots to learn.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: gray1720 on October 18, 2021, 09:20:20
I've been growing the stuff for years, and have had some fabulous crops and some stinkers* (last year - up to my tits, eating it until the last cloves dried to nothing - this year, square root of bugger all!), so I feel a bit of a wally asking this but here goes.

From somewhere I picked up the idea that garlic likes a fairly low-nutrient soil so every year I plant it where my spuds have just come out of - with the added advantage that that is usually the first ground that is clear to cultivate. However looking at destructions for the work gardening club (we have a little "town plot" - basically a glorified raised bed), I keep being told it likes fertile soil.

So (a) where did I get that idea from? (b) am I starving the poor stuff by making it follow nutrient sponges like spuds? and (c) what do I do now? I have ground that's been rather more fallow than intended this year that it could go on, but I need to clear and dig that first, whereas what I have clear and dug has hosted spuds and pumpkins - equally awkward!

Advice, anecdotes, general garlic chit-chat welcomed!

*No pun intended.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Tee Gee on October 18, 2021, 09:51:38
I would say; like onions they want nitrogen feed until they start swelling, then potash after that.

Added to that I didn't weed them after they begun to swell as I rightly, or wrongly, thought the weeds took up any surplus nitrogen in the soil.

Then there were some who would say I was just too  bl**dy lazy for not weeding.

To sum up I was always happy with might crop!
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: gray1720 on October 19, 2021, 08:53:38
I cannot imagine the Great Tee Gee ever being lazy. Using time intelligently, now that's a different matter!

I shall hang on until we get some muck, then, and stir in a soupcon before I plant. Dunno about potash, I'll think of something.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Tee Gee on October 19, 2021, 12:17:55
potash=Tomato feed or similar
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: gray1720 on October 19, 2021, 12:43:06
Of course. I've enough toms that I'm always up to my tits in the stuff. No problem, thank you.
Title: Re: garlic
Post by: Tee Gee on October 19, 2021, 13:12:48
This is an article  did on fertilisers that covers the most common types and what they do;

https://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Content/F/Fertiliser/Fertiliser.htm (https://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Content/F/Fertiliser/Fertiliser.htm)
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