I kept this in the same thread, my friend Mark braided his 10 foot braid today, guess it took a while,lol...but he is gonna send me a pic soon, and ill post it here, or in a new thread.

Bump and a request for advice. I want to add another pic to my garlic page and can't decide between these 3. It's Rocco, cleaned today while sitting in the garden with the labs and some good music.

I vote for the third pic. Very nice.

Thanks, check this one out. I planted several cloves in between my tomato plants last summer as pest deterrents. I left them in over the winter and they kept growing. Unfortunately I have no idea where I got this softneck from, but it set a new record for me at 3.417" That's humongous for a softneck It's almost bigger than my Big E. I am considering planting a few of several different varieties in the next couple weeks to see what happens next summer.

Very nice garlic. I would go with the top Rocco pic - something about that pic just looks great to me. I also like the size of that softneck. Pretty impressive. I'm thinking about sticking a few cloves in tomorrow aftrer seeing that.

You apparently had good weather for cleaning. It rained hard here and my daughter and I had to hole up in the garage to clean most of ours, then brought it into the house to braid.

Here is with the braids (for the first time braiding, I think I did OK).



And here is just the braids (I think this pic shows them better).


I'm saving the two short braids (6 largest bulbs of each) for planting. Right now my daughter has decided the should hang in her room as decoration, while the other 4 braids are hanging around the kitchen (both of which are thilling my wife to no end).

Nice braids! The fourth one from the left is excellent. I bet that wasn't the first one you did?

Dave, I like the first photo best. So, you think planting softneck now would help? I didn't have many and they weren't very big, but I do love the taste and would like to have more next year.

James, Nice braids!

Barb, I have never tried it on purpose. It's been done before. I think it will come down to whether we can deal with the extra green growth when winter comes.

Thanks on the braid comments. David, the 4th one was actually the second one I did. Those are the Polish Softnecks. For some reason they seemed a lot better for braiding that the Western Rose (first 3 in the picture). I did the final cleaning on them first, did my first braid on the small Polish Softnecks, then did the larger bulbs second. The tops on the Western Rose did not braid as nicely. They were not as pliable as the tops of the Polish softneck – even after I had them wrapped in a damp towel (and for longer than I had the Polish Softnecks wrapped). Now I need to do a taste test between the types and decide if I plant both again next year.

Barb, I am also thinking of trying to stick a few of my smaller softneck cloves now and see what I get. I also didn’t get a great harvest (I’m happy with it, but I didn’t plant a lot, so I didn’t get a ton and need to save the biggest for the fall planting). David, would we just try to mulch up high enough to cover the green come fall? Since this was an unintentional experiment on your part I am not sure you can answer that, but I may do this one intentionally this year…

James, that's what you do. Pile on straw and or leaves to give them some protection. My susanville was a foot tall when our freeze hit. I got some leaf damage, but they survived

Thanks David. I don't know why (lack of sleep maybe), but piling the staw/mulch over foot-high (or higher) garlic just didn't seem to make sense yesterday. Next bulb I crack open, I'm taking a few smaller cloves and planting them now.

Wow, what great garlic pics from everyone. Dave's bowl of garlic is awesome and Jame's braids are terrific. I won't be posting pics (lazy) but here are my final results - nothing very large so no contest entries, even for garlic virgins. I pulled the hard-neck and they were respectable, about the size of a store bought garlic, more appropriate to type than my poor little elephants. I have braided them (ugly braid) and they are drying, all five of them.

Still have no idea what the mystery garlic plant was. I pulled it and it was round and not very differentiated. There were three little bulblets on the outside which I broke off and planted. It is the whitest colour of any garlic in the garden and about the size of a ping pong ball (could it be a ping pong ball that mysteriously came to life)? The bulblets let me know it was garlic and not a rogue onion, but very strange. The garlic scent was present but very mild. No scapes, so definately not an elephant. Leaves broader than the other hardneck. Any ideas?

Maggie

It was an Elephant garlic....they have broad leaves, and are known for the bulblets and coming out round, and not cloved....thats probably the reason for its lack of scape.

Maybe another type of garlic has those characteristics, but im sure thats what it is.

Well, I finally took some pictures of my garlic. It's so poorly braided I also bundled it and it's not very pretty nor very large on it's own. So, I took a cue from Dave and posed it with some flowers (not that the deer left all that many) to make it seem a little friendlier than most garlic. Here is my lovely group of mostly hardneck (and I did want Blue Streak to see that they did okay, so hope you are watching.)

Sharing a giggle with the Ginger



Leaving the conversating with the Golden Rod and Crocosmia hanging



Getting cozy with the Clematis



Having a friendly chat with the onions over the fence



My apologies for getting anthropomorphological, but it's all I have.

Maggie

Very cool Maggie! I love the shot with the clematis. You could have greeting cards made with that shot. It makes me smile!