Bolting garlic

[Robert_Brenchley]

My garlic is all perfectly solid on its stems, but the overwintering onions are keeping over. i lifted a few yesterday to give myself a chance to dig some ground elder out of the bed before my sweet corn went in; elsewhere I'm interplanting it, and I'll lift the onions in a week or two.

[Robert_Brenchley]

[moonbells]

Joy larkcom says that some varieties are meant to flower and it's not a problem just remove the flowers 2-3 weeks before lifting the garlic, however she doesn't say which varieties these are. I have MArco which are all beginning to produce flower buds and thermidrome which ain't.

Should I be removing the buds from Marco or leaving them as she suggests? Or have I misread her??? OMG the metaphysical angst of it all. :o :o

Marco are hardneck - harvest the flowers now, use in stir fries or in making garlic scape pesto - is fantastic on large barbecued mushrooms.

(just made a load last night!)

moonbells

[mat]

Hi SuperSprout.

My Cristo garlic have very thin stems (but gently scraping shows the bulbs to be a good size I believe) and this variety collapsed a few days ago.  I "staked" each one with short canes, thinking it was too early for harvesting...  The other varieties have much thicker stems (but bulbs no larger!) so are all standing firmly.

However, I have just read that I should lift them as soon as they flop over, so I'll lift them later this week.

mat

[Hyacinth]

I lifted all my purple wights  this evening. Beauts one and all. 8) The elephant garlics are still standing proud ;D

[Bun]

I lifted one of mine that had bolted, just for a looksee really as I've never tried growing them before & was very pleasantly suprised! I don't know which variety it is 'cos the wind blew off all my lables 2 days after I planted them all, but it is a good size & I'm quite chuffed!  ;D

[redimp]

If you leave lifting too late, the bulbs seperate to give each clove a bit of space for next years growth.

[Bun]

I jsut opened up that garlic so I could use some in my spag bol & that had started to seperate! Should I lift all of that type?
What would happen if I left them? Whould the individual cloves start to sprout?  ???

[Robert_Brenchley]

Lift it. It'll be OK but the appearance won't be the best. It would sprout eventually.

[Bun]

OK, thanks.