Hi Bud,

I lost some too, but I didn't mulch. I planted some spring Garlic too. It is not impressing me much. HaHa Do have some decent plants that made it through the winter, going out there. Been dry here and I've been watering. Glad to hear an update!

I test-dug a softneck today, just starting to swell. Scapes from the hardnecks can't be too far off. Mine are looking a little parched, so the rain coming will be welcome. Last chance to do any feeding, from here on out it will be rainwater, straight up thank you, till dry-down.
About anything could have killed your garlic, from too wet a fall after planting, or White Soy Bean Mold, a sudden hard deep freeze, a busted basil plate, to onion maggots. The last too aren't too likely, you couldn't have busted ALL their butts.....and surely one would have survived a maggot infestation. Did you replant in the same area, and how does the new crop look ( besides being smaller ) ? Garlic Heads everywhere wish to know...

I had only 1 row of garlic survive the strange winter weather. Planted last October. Not even sporadic sprouting, just 4 rows never even appeared! So I only have a total of 8 plants! But they look terrific! I'm thinking it was the variety. But now I don't remember which I planted in which row.

..........when I said they were looking parched and the rain would be welcome.......I DIDN'T MEAN 7 INCHES IN LESS THAN 12 HOURS !!!

Mumsey, hope you're faring well with this weather. Even the beaver and muskrats are swimming for higher ground down here.

Hi - I'm new to this site and I love it! I planted garlic last spring, and it didn't do a thing. This year I go out to my little herb garden and there they are!!! Since I am a garlic growing novice, how do I know when they're ready to be picked? Is it the same as onions....when the tops start to fall over, or is there some other indicator? I've seen some comments about planting in the fall (I live in Michigan) - is that typically when I should do it? Sorry about all the questions, but I sure would appreciate some advice!!! thanks....

Welcome, dd!

The majority here in your area go for fall planting.

And MooreHavenGardens (do you have a shorter name? ),

Maybe I didn't make myself clear...the scallion-looking things are in the spot where I thought I dug ALL my garlic up last year...they just started growing there in late fall.

The Russian cloves that I actually planted last fall are in a bed next to the scallion-looking things, so I could dig them out, separate them, and re-plant them.

Maybe I will dig some of them & re-plant, just for the fun of it...you guys know, right lisaann...an experiment?

IF I find the time! LOL!

Just planted 10 tomato plants tonight at the nursing home where I work, and will plant some out here, over the next few days.

ABOUT TIME the weather got right for it!

Thanks for all the advice/help about my weird plants!

....now Bean.....think back.....you were calling me MHG for short, clear back on page 4 or 5, I think ...u been workin' too hard.

And I'm pretty sure you were pretty clear. So......
#1 - even though you believed you harvested all evidence that you had grown garlic in that spot, you missed/dropped one.
#2 - one of them, or you, dropped a bulbil and it hatched.
#3 - you have Garlic Knomes. ( don't mess with them, very bad juju...)
#4 - your soil has developed immaculate ophioscorodon conception.

Since you're describing them as "scallion-looking things", I'll lean towards #2. If they were leafing out, then we would know that they almost certainly had to be conceived from cloves, which would lead us to #'s 1,3, or 4. Knomes generally only propagate from seed when developing a new strain/variety/flavor/characteristic. As to #4; stranger things have happened; ask any chicken about their eggs and which came first.....

Yes, you could harvest and treat them as any other garlic seed crop, or you could do what I talked about a few posts back when you asked.

ddm - welcome to Lisaann's GarlicHead Gathering; where GarlicHeads everywhere gather to braid.
All we ask is that you share what type of garlic, hardnecked or soft, that you are growing so that we might be more specific in our answers to whatever your queries might be......and that you bring donuts every third time you post.....
...get ready; somebody here is gonna ask you to read down thru this thread, all your questions will have been answered. Make's for a good read too..... Give a shout when you get back to the bottom with us again.
Your garlic really doesn't care where you live, the same basic rules apply anywhere.

........and on a smooth segway, check out Lisaann's Yoo Hoo post, there's some new pictures posted by Oh2fly there.

oh hey !!! I almost forgot !!! I got scapes !!!!! bet it's three weeks till Liz see's hers if the time frame difference holds true

No scapes here as of yesterday. I haven't been out there yet this morning.

Ok, that puts us right about June 16th. I'll be watchin' for them. Noted on calendar: "check for scapes."

MHG...I remember!
You crack me up!
Guess I will have to take more pics & get them on here

Is it my turn to bring the donuts?

Man, what a great gardening day. We got all our maters in,and our garlic has scapes. So, I guess I am harvesting in 6 weeks? Here are MHG's pics. I added his 2 new ones to the others that should have been posted here to begin with. So, fire me! Oh, MHG, I may have the same water problem at harvest time. I planted my peppers next to my garlic today. They will need water when the garlic won't. But I used my extra black plastic
watering trays. Maybe the water will go straight down to the pepper roots? It's hard when you only have so much room and too many plants to try out.

thanx again, Dave

the orange sweat shirt pics are late Oct.-early Nov., 04.
back when I was still making raised rows with a spade, spacing them on a staggered 3" spacing using a 1" wide rail.
used up alot of dirt doing that. Then the next year a passage from one of the first books I read about planting garlic popped into my head as I was crawling along stabbing the row. It suddenly dawned on me that I was manually laying them out using a mechinized spacing formula. DUH !! This last year's planting you notice they are in a much denser planting pattern using alot less square footage. I wasn't near as wore out when it was all done as I also had the apithany that you don't need a raised planting area if your whole acre is a raised bed. Dbl.-DUH !!!

...speaking of light bulbs going off; it's gnomes, not knomes.....geezzzz......where did I set my beer down at...?

WOW! That's ALOT of garlic, and here some of us are worried about just a few plants!

By the way, that Corona looks pretty good, too!

My garlic got critter damaged again this year. I pulled the chicken wire off to add more mulch and some of the plot got dug up and a couple bulbs exposed. I guess I should have left the wire down and forgot about the mulch.