Allotments 4 All

Quote from: antipodes on July 01, 2014, 15:52:19
Yesterday I cleaned mine off, after having let them dry in the pantry for 10 days. There are about 24 bulbs but they are very small this year. They seem to be hardneck, as there is a rather solid stem that goes up the middle of the bulb. Is that maybe a mistake?

The fabulous French pink garlics (can't remember the name, something Rose Lautrec?) are softnecks.  Hardnecks do better in colder winters.  Apart from the Scottish Highlands, I think softnecks are better in the UK and many areas of France, and they can be planted in early spring.

Stem in the middle of bulb sounds like a hardneck variety.  Occasionally an environmentally stressed softneck makes a hard stem, but that usually stays very short and produces a second set of small cloves out of the 'neck' of the plant, not the top.  These are called 'sidebolts'. 

Not all hardnecks flower.  In a bad year (warm winter, bad rust stopping development) they stop producing their flower scapes.  But they usually still show the hard stemmed bit between the cloves in the harvested plant.

Try a softneck just to see what they do in your plot (a clove of local garlic for eating should give you a good idea and if you are worried about virus transfer, plant it away from your stock garlic).

Good advice Galina!

Sounds like hardneck to me.. the hard 'pin' that goes into middle of the bulb is good give a way.

Although my garlic is still in ground...I've lifted few trial ones and the sizes vary very much this year. Oh...don't  talk about rust...haven't seen it as much as this year before! The good thing is...because we've had so much dry weather...it brought the spread of the rust to halt..and even the worst effected plants managed to bring out the last leaf out and keep it almost rust free.  When I saw that I decided not to lift the plants up and give them a another week or two to finish their bulb development...fingers crossed it does the job!
We've got little bit of rain to come..so after that the soil should be tad softer and the garlic easier to dig out..(any excuse is good for easier work out.. )