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I planted some Solent Wight in October & dug up the first one today. The leaves had quite a lot of rust spots and the bulb was not garlic shaped at all- it had grown but is oval rather than round,if that makes sense. I wonder if it's still too early, or whether it has suffered from the extremes of weather. Any ideas?

Has the original bulb split into individual cloves or is just one large clove?

The weather may have effected things if it was not cold enough at the right time.

Mine are always covered in rust, this is a bad year compared to last, but it has not effected the bulbs too much. Though I am still to lift mine!

Jerry

Mine are disappointing too, from your posts I conclude that it is not just me !!!

i grew purple wight i think - i was happy with the crop. the bulbs are a good size for me - slightly smaller than the big ones you buy in supermarkets. but then i wasnt expecting elephant garlic results :)

I'm very worried about mine - having got them to grow clean in raised beds, they are taller than I've ever had before, but are stiff as a post & not cloving.

Can't say we didn't have freezing weather in April. The wrong sort of freezing weather??

Quote from: tim on June 19, 2006, 16:01:39
Can't say we didn't have freezing weather in April. The wrong sort of freezing weather??

Well I planted mine in October, and we have had enough frosts since then !

Planted my garlic in October 05 in pouring raining as I had to get something in and i've pulled up two and they look good. What do I do now leave to dry or can we eat straight away?

Both !

"not cloving"- that's the phrase I was looking for! I've just taken the outside layer off & it's definitely still one big clove, & doesn't smell anything like as strong as the stuff I grew last year. Here's hoping a bit more time will do the trick for the rest.

I was a little anxious about mine and dug one up recently, and it was the biggest I've ever grown and looks wonderful. Sorry about the boasting, but last year some of it went mouldy and I had to dig the lot up in case it spread. Still using them, though - not large, but delicious and kept well.

A couple of quotes:


Garlic planted in spring had lower yield and 16% of bulbs produced only one round clove.
Pre-plant chilling requirements for cloving of spring-planted garlic

Caroline, if they haven't cloved yet, I don't think they will now.  Mine are small, but I have lousy rust and rotten white rot so for my, anything is better than nothing.

To get them to clove, you'd have to leave them in the ground over next winter. I had a rootle round my Albigensian Wight earlier, and found some lovely great bulbs. Meanwhile we're on green garlic from some not very good stuff that I was too ill to lift last summer.

I planted mine in november, I accidentally hoed one a couple of weeks ago, so dug it up. It hadn't cloved unfortunately. We had a pretty cold winter, so the temperature theory wouldn't seem to apply here?  ???

I belive the technical term for the cold period is Vernilisation.

There are a number of seeds, bulbs, etc that need a cold snap to perform well, garlic included.

HTH

Jerry

It'll be interesting to see how the ones I planted in Feb. grow. :(

Are they still OK to eat if they haven't cloved?

Indeed - as in Green Garlic - a gourmet dish!

Quote from: tim on June 20, 2006, 15:47:46
Indeed - as in Green Garlic - a gourmet dish!

Being a lifelong foodie, would you care to elaborate Tim ... ?

Would if I could!

Just meant that, as illustrated, it's a 'delicacy'. Using the whole keboodle.

Ours is too tough now - but I read that they're trying to introduce a 'summer-use' variety.