Spring planted -doing so well - every TLC - now flagging & bulbs only 1" across. Not like last year!
Plant in the autumn; it gets off to a better start. Heavy mulching makes quite a difference in this sort of weather.
mine too,i guess its too late to change things now?
Stupid - winter planted - as last year!!
I know it's early yet, but big difference?
I planted mine autumn 09 and my bulbs are smaller than last year ! same variety too.
Must be the weather!!
Duke
all my garlic has rotted this year and was autumn planted/ shades x
Tim, is that the spacing you usually use? They look a bit tightly packed to me... ??? (My 'wet' garlic is spaced like yours, but bulbs weren't the priority. ;-) )
My garlic is still growing, even the early stuff that should have been pulled in May; they're in pots/planters and have only now begun to begin bulbing up. My hardnecks have only just begun producing scrapes, likewise the 'elephants'.
Good thinking, old girl!!
Yes - the near ones are for green, but, just went tough this year - the others are 5-6".
It's the collapse that bugs me.
yep, mine are pretty rubbish and some of the cloves haven't even split - planted in November, one to a 5litre pot (white rot on the lottie plot, gah!) Have made a separate bulbframe for the onions although I only have 180 this year in an effort to defeat the WR - I used my old breezeblock coldframe so have high hopes after 4 years of useless onions. Leeks and spring onions always OK though as long as they are not bulbing types like white Lisbon (Ishikura and Ramrod for me)
Mine are pretty pathetic this year too. It's the first time I've grown garlic in the new garden, so thought it was just the heavy soil?
I've harvested most of it, but left some as it was still quite green, but that's collapsing now too, so I'm sure it won't last much longer.
I mulched it really thickly, but it doesn't seem to have made any difference to the soil - rock hard, dry as a bone!
This may be a silly question.. but should garlic be watered? Didnt bother with mine and they are rather small!
My Autumn planted garlic isn't very good this year and its already stopped growing - think its lack of moisture - and the same thing has happened to my shallots, they are quite small but the bulbs - variety Jermor - made very large clusters with up to 16 in one case - but don't mind as I prefer small shallots for use in mixed roast vegetables
QuoteThis may be a silly question.. but should garlic be watered? Didnt bother with mine and they are rather small!
Surely no question is silly! :) In my own experience, garlic doesn't need much watering, if any. I haven't watered mine at the new plot, which is clay, and holds moisture well.
But if your soil is very free draining and perhaps not got a lot of organic matter, you could find it would be improved by watering every now and then. That was the case for me on my last plot.
Might have to play it by ear next year, if they're not growing much and the soil is very dusty and loose around them - give them a water? I think it's too late now.
pics of our garlic harvest, the autumn are lots bigger than the spring sown, plus we've already eaten 5 bulbs
first autumn sown
second spring vs autumn
third spring sown :)
Lucky old you!
We don't usually lift for another fortnight. Not that it's going to help this year.
As soon as I saw that photo I thought blimey they are close! But then remembered a comment you made a while ago about using the small cloves for wet garlic.
The other thing that interests me is how much later you are - I guess that is to do with altitude?
Quote from: tim on July 04, 2010, 16:25:37
Lucky old you!
We don't usually lift for another fortnight. Not that it's going to help this year.
Ah, but we've had no cucumbers or courgettes and one of our cucumbers has turned it's toes up and died :-\
Must be the weather. This year my garlic looks like garlic with papers round the bulb. Most years the outer cloves are massive and don't have that paper enclosing all the bulb. My japs weren't all that good either.
My early garlic's rubbish. I'm just hoping the maincrop's better!
Wierd.... I'm growing the best garlicve I've ever managed this year.... OK the plot does hold moisture well, but I've had a couple of bulbs that were volunteers left from lat years complete failure and they're great.... good size bulbs and halve the amount from shop bought unless you want people avoiding you at work..... when I lifted them I got curious so had a firkle around the "real" crops.... the elephant garlices are huge and will comprehensively demolish my old personal best, some of those bulbsd look to be north of 8 ounces, a couple of them might break the pound mark, the softnecks look like all my previuous attempts at elephant and the hardnecks are now the subject of an experiment. They've sent up their flower shoots, they're a serpentine variety so I can safely remove the flower=s without worrying about water going down the stem, so half of them have had their flowers removed.... I want to see how it affects the crop.....
chrisc
I dug some of mine yesterday- one variety was good, another was rotting.
i pulled up 3 3 weeks ago and they were huge, the rest i pulled up yesterday are tiny,
the 3 huge ones were planted last october whereas the others were planted in march are tiny, the leaves have all died off.
Regards
James
rule of thumb, they need the cold (best to plant late autumn) and they do need moisture, everything does to grow well
Went to the lottie yesterday and the strong wind we had at the weekend has bent all mine over, at first I thought someone had walked over the row. Hopefully they will be OK.
It's probably ready for lifting in that case. My early garlic flopped over last week.