Hi Guys
I am looking to pick up some shallots, garlic and elephant garlic for next year. I have been looking at the prices and am tempted to pick it up from the french place.
Shallot Escalotte Grise
================
T&M 500g £5.49
Marshalls 25bulbs £5.85
Baumaux 500g £4.24 (6,30â,¬)
Garlic Farm 15sets £9.00
(500g = approx 15-20 sets )
Garlic - Elephant
===========
T&M - Sold out ( would have been £6.99 for 12 cloves )
Garlic Farm - 8 Cloves £9
Marshalls - 15 cloves £6.75
Garlic - Purple
=========
Marshalls - 25cloves £4.75
T&M - 2 bulbs £3.99
Baumax - 5 bulbs £3.83 (5,70â,¬)
Garlic - White
=========
Marshalls - 25cloves £4.75
T&M - 2 bulbs £3.99
Baumax - 5 bulbs £3.90 (5,80â,¬) or different variaty £4.71 (7â,¬)
Baumax link - http://www.graines-baumaux.fr/ postage £8 (12â,¬)
Garlic Farm - http://www.thegarlicfarm.co.uk postage £4.75
Marshalls - http://www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk £3.75
What do you think i should do?
Cambourne7
Sorry, but may I confuse matters by adding Seeds of Italy's offerings?
http://www.seedsofitaly.com/catalogue/15 (http://www.seedsofitaly.com/catalogue/15)
i went to purchase pots garlic onion and shallot sets from t & m ones that were marked as autumn stock they had no garlic and none of the potatoes onions or shallots i ordered so check availability with them
Deal with a small British company which will see you right should you have a problem.
Might be cheaper in the end?
like whom tim?
Barnowl, seeds of italy yep good call forgot about them :-)
They seam to be sold out of the purple garlic but there white garlic is cheap enough at £2.49 for 3 bulbs. I could not see any shallots though.
I think it's a bit early for garlic. Will wait until this season's crops and seed garlic are sorted out.
Quite honestly after the disaster this year, I am going back to Tesco and French markets.
The expensive Albegensian Wight and Wight Cristo that I bought from T&M was plagued by rust from the very first green shoots. They were not grown on or near last years garlic bed and I did not use compost, but horse manure.
Believe it or not but last years crop of hard stem Tesco garlic is still useable in a gloomy garage.
Compare the two photographs, taken on July 1st 2006 & July 1st 2007.
(http://www.allaboutliverpool.com/allgarlicgrowing.jpg)
(http://www.allaboutliverpool.com/allgarlic070701.jpg)
http://www.allaboutliverpool.com/allaboutallotments_Vegetables_garlic.html
I will mention shallots when I return from Nice, but when I left the T&M ones were poor and the endlessly recycled anonymous ones were great.
I bought mine from this company last year, excellent prices and good stock. They will be selling new stock in August...
http://www.bulbs.co.uk/1/default.asp
Like the Garlic Farm, Cambourne - I know they are seen as expensive but.....!
Allabout - when you return - not a pretty sight, but can you really blame the seed for rust?
We have grown from a variety of suppliers ove rthe years & have never had rust - until this year, when it seems to have hit many people. And, with us, it has hit plants from 2 suppliers.
Tim
It is a relief to know that I am not alone, maybe I am a little hasty, but to be sure, I shall grow 2 half beds thirty feet apart one with bought garlic from a supplier and one with market/Tesco garlic. I love experimenting and with digital photography is is easy to record results, (and with A4A), share them!
Good idea :-)
Last year I had a little rust on the garlic, which did no harm. This year it's been building up steadily; the early garlic was orange but OK, the maincrop is dying back. it's a fungus, and fungi like damp conditions. I don't think the supplier is at fault.
shallots always seem to sell out very early. Maybe I should start a shallot farm and sell them to gardeners.
...but where would i get enough shallots to start the farm??? ;-)
pigeon you could grown them from seed :-)
T&M have just send out a email offering 10% off garlic so its going to sell quickly.
Further to my first post i have the details now from Kings.
There selling
Purple Garlic - 3 bulbs £2.45
White Garlic - 3 bulbs £2.45
There also selling onion sets very cheap which well be 4-6 weeks earlier than the sets planted in spring
Senshyu Yellow £1.75 (50sets) Red onion electric £2.25 (50sets)
postage & packing £1.25
And a recomendation about http://www.reallygarlicky.co.uk/main.html
Who will be selling bulbs of planting garlic for 40pence each :) and £1.50 postage and packing
We bought some long shallots in a supermarket in la belle France last October and put 20 of them in a little row in early November - we got a luvverly crop out of them. Cost us less than a Euro for them.
Won't be replanting any of them for another crop though, just in case there are any nasties.
Nice :-) Will keep my eye out when i head to france later in the year.
I am planning on growing most of my onions from seed this year its just the shallots and garlic that i need to buy.
Interesting thread this particularly because I am having to stock up next year with some new stock this year as last years was rubbish.
As I have mentioned before I like to buy from local supermarkets even if 'local' means Spain where I bought last years Peppers & Tomatoes both of which are doing well.
My question is; I am off to the Med this September namely the Greek islands & Croatia where do you think I should buy my garlic?
I await your answers!
I feel I am unable to reply to any satisfactory level without seeing the potential purchases myself and assessing their quality.......got any room in your suitcase? (would have to be more of an ocean liner type trunk actually.... :-\)
I'm going to add my two penn'orth, just to confuse things. I buy the majority of my stuff from Tamar Organics, and I've never had any complaints with either the quality of stock or the service I get. Slightly batty, but lovely people.
http://www.tamarorganics.co.uk/
Quote from: silverbirch on July 31, 2007, 20:14:34
I'm going to add my two penn'orth, just to confuse things. I buy the majority of my stuff from Tamar Organics, and I've never had any complaints with either the quality of stock or the service I get. Slightly batty, but lovely people.
http://www.tamarorganics.co.uk/
Shallots - Not sure how many you get as there is no quantitys.
Garlic - 125g for pink garlic £2.70 white garlic £2.55 Not sure how many bulbs you get for 125g though
They do i see have the organic slug pellets which is good to know and a wonderful variaty of green manures.
That's right, they sell by weight, not quantity, though I normally find that 250g is enough for me, that gives 4 or 5 cloves. I bought a kilo of onion sets once, and shared them with most of the other plotholders.
ah
Just wondered if anyone has seen any garlic in any of the garden centers??
I bought two bulbs of garlic at Tatton Park and two at Southport Flower Show. I am going to plant them separately in October and watch their progress. But dum dum me forgot to write down the name of the garlic, I assumed it was on the info sheet but it wasn't, I think one variety was Solent Wight...but as long as they grow...!
I planted loads of garlic at that time last year and I have only had a couple of teensy little bulbs with small cloves on each so very disappointing this year. I am hoping it was just the exceptionally wet weather and that I get huge crops next year cause I love garlic...
Lin
Give it time Cam - Wilko's should have theirs in quite soon!
;D
just to comment on what tim said about buying locally to save problems; I think that when you buy over the net it doesn't make much difference where the company is! I have found French suppliers to be very good on the whole, and I will check out that link to Baumaux as this is the last year i try to plant garlic in spring. I am going to have to pull and chuck out all my garlic, none of the bulbs developed properly :( does anyone know why that might be? I bought it from a garden centre...
Cam I saw some garlic in Focus DIY yesterday. :)
Just ordering mine from the garlic farm on the sunny south island. ;D
thanks guys :)
Quote from: antipodes on August 27, 2007, 09:13:11
.......... I will check out that link to Baumaux as this is the last year i try to plant garlic in spring. I am going to have to pull and chuck out all my garlic, none of the bulbs developed properly :( does anyone know why that might be? I bought it from a garden centre...
I don't think garlic should be planted in the spring - isn't from Autumn to Christmas the usual planting period? It needs cold snaps to develop properly.
A bit like onions, there are two types of garlic. One sort needs planting by Christmas, the other can go out by Februaury. I find the overwintering one stores better.
Thanks for the info Silverbirch :). Only grown it for one year so all advice welcome.
With Spring planting, I would be concerned that if we didn't get a cold patch the garlic wouldn't divide into cloves. Should you leave it in a cold fridge for a few days before planting or am I worrying unnecessarily?
I do not know of any evidence that garlic needs frost to divide. I have always assumed that provided it is given enough time undisturbed, to grow to complete it's growth cycle, it will divide.
After all, it is grown in many parts of the Mediterranean where it is unlikely to get any frost.
I think they do get cold winters in southern europe. But I don't actually know whether or not that's what helps division. I just always believed the received wisdom
I but most of my shallots and Onions also seed potatoes in my local shop in Pontlottyn
great service and quallity sets etc. I find it cheaper to buy local also they let my know when stock is in.
I think all varieties of garlic need a 'cold' spell for a certain length of time but that the 'coldness' required varies - thus why different garlics are suitable for different climates and for different sowing times.
I rate Marshalls - and if you're in Cambourne they're quite local...
I picked this from the Garlic Farm website:
Grow it yourself in the UK
We have been growing garlic in the Arreton Valley on the Isle of Wight for over 25 years. Garlic grows well over most of the UK provided it is grown in a free draining soil that is not too acid and kept well watered and weed free. Any amateur gardener can grow good garlic.
Provided it has adequate water in a fertile soil it will grow anywhere in the UK . If there is any secret to growing good garlic it is in how it is handled at harvest and dried. This should present no problem to the amateur gardener who buys 5-10 bulbs and grows 50 to a 100 bulbs.
The UK climate presents the commercial grower with more of a challenge. Bright sparkling white bulbs are the product of Mediterranean sunshine. In our English climate we have to make maximum use of the sun when it is there and protect the garlic from the prolonged wet spells that are our lot.
Garlic requires a long rotation of more than six years to prevent the build up of diseases such as white rot, and nematode pests such as eelworm. The land is ploughed, cultivated and fertilised according to the needs of the crop and the chosen fields for the year.
Isle of Wight Garlic is planted from October to February and the first garlic shoots mark the rows from January onwards. Garlic requires a spell of cold weather, generally 1-2 weeks at 0-4C, to prepare itself physiologically for bulb formation later in the year.
Weed control is largely by mechanical inter row cultivation and some hand hoeing. This is supplemented in the spring with an application of herbicide to suppress particularly difficult weed competition.
During the spring the garlic crop responds to applications of nitrogen and sulphur to encourage healthy leaf growth. There is some evidence that the sulphur also assists in the formation of higher levels of allicin, the sulphur compound which is at the centre of the medicinal properties of garlic and also for the sulphurous combinations which make up garlic's pungent aroma.