Allotments 4 All

This forums great
Thought my garlic was doing fantastic, planted in october last year,
growing well, thought i was going to get massive garlic bulbs as the stems were about 2" across at the base, but when i lifted one it just went striaght down no bulb at all just like a large leek.
What have i done wrong?
Everybody says garlic is easy but i seem to have messed it up.
Martin

what type of garlic did you plant, shop bought or special planting garlic?

If you bought something from a garden centre to plant do you know the type??

Maybe it was a leek?  ;) ;D ;D ;D

not sure what type it is as the label is up at the allotment, but it was the special planting type.

Sometimes garlic doesn't form bulbs when the weather is too hot, but that is hardly a problem we've had this year.

I have just "googled" and found this.It may give you some answers.

http://www.naturalhub.com/grow_vegetable_type_garlic.htm

with all this wet stuff about it probably is a leak ;D ??? :P

Mine were the same- I put it down to getting too dry back in that really hot weather in April (ahh, remeber that?!)

Its still early - why not let them stay in the ground a bit longer? If the tops are still green then there is still time for the bulbs to form. 
Most plants in the onion family don't start forming bulbs until after June 21st when they start storing food in the bulb ready for flowering the following year.  Never say never........

I did a trial and planted some garlic from the garden centre like they said in april but they didn't bulb up so looks like a leek with a white end and green top. Wouldn't bother again lucky I had planted some in October too.

My solent white has only recently decided to form bulbs the lower leaves are only just starting to yellow so I probably won't pull it for a couple of weeks yet but a bit of digging around shows the bulbs are larger than most of what is available in the supermarkets at the moment 2 weeks ago it looked more like spring onions. Mine is rarely ready to harvest until mid July anyway so you've got a while yet.

Could it be elephant garlic? I understand it is not a true garlic at all but a type of leek. You clould have easily bought the bulbs believing them to be garlic in this case.

Quote from: Garden Apprentice on July 02, 2007, 18:17:45
Could it be elephant garlic? I understand it is not a true garlic at all but a type of leek. You clould have easily bought the bulbs believing them to be garlic in this case.

I think the size of the cloves might have given him a hint tho ::) ;D