teeny tiny garlic

[electric landlady]

I finally dug up the garlic yesterday - had been leaving it in the ground in the hopes that the bulbs would get a bit bigger. 

Some are proper garlic sized but most are the diameter of a 50p piece, although they have developed cloves. 

Is this just down to the weather? Should I have fed them at some point? I can't remember what variety it was, as helpfully I wrote the tags in non-indelible pen and the writing came off in the rain....it was proper growing garlic though not supermarket stuff.

[electric landlady]

[Alimo]

I had the same with mine - as it's the first year I've grown garlic I'd like to know if I've done anything wrong....  They did suffer from rust very early on, but I kept them in the ground then as they hadn't bulked up.  So maybe this was the problem...

Alison

[tim]

I had quite a number that were disappointingly small, but they were from wimpy cloves that I put in for green garlic.

They do like to be fed - both Nitrogen & Potash in Feb/Mar.

[Tee Gee]

Snap!!

and mines were fed in Feb/March and it made no difference it would seem.

p.s I put in big cloves to boot!

[asbean]

Big cloves, well-fed, excellent soil, no probs in the past - this year?  Absolute disaster.  Each head is about the size of last year's cloves.  They taste fine, but we are going to finish them, one lasts for just one meal at this rate.

[jjt]

Too hot in April I reckon. They ripened before they'd done enough growing. Mine did anyway, and onions the same.

[tim]

Just remembered that many of mine didn't go in until January.

[cambourne7]

Hi Guys,

Had an accident with the stimmer on my garlic bed, i had thought that i could wait another couple of weeks as there was still green growing at the bottom but stimming the bed put paid to that.

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/cambourne7/Allotment/?action=view&current=DSC00367.jpg

After a bit of rummaging i saved 62 bulbs of garlic of mixed size but most are not huge  ;)

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/cambourne7/Allotment/?action=view&current=DSC00374.jpg

http://s109.photobucket.com/albums/n61/cambourne7/Allotment/?action=view&current=DSC00375.jpg

I chucked about another 5 as the strimmer had got to them.

This bed was a mix of shop and seed garlic and in the same conditions the shop bought garlic was smaller, but not by much. This garlic went into the ground in Febuary.

I still have another 10 plants in the ground which look like they will last a little longer so i am going to keep them in the ground for a little longer.

Cambourne7