Don't sweat it, Little One....it's all about ground temp.s right now....you'll just have to wait your turn. Leave the mulch pulled back to help warm your row faster. If it's been dry, a little water will wake it up.

Nope, never heard of him until you brought it up. But I did check out his site and send him a note to update it.

Why does cloves in dirt by Oct. 15 in zone 6 guarantee root growth....? No green/ no promises....hahaha !!! >-

I had green growth, maybe too much green growth, as it kept growing well into January, and then an instant cold snap with temps dropping drastically, and fast. Very crazy weather this year, for me. I'm contributing that to some of my problems too.

That and it was probably foreign garlic, live and learn, and I'm learning and loving it!

Lisa - Good Morning
True, too much top growth can be a bad thing. Key here is that when we talk about planting garlic, we talk about Hard Freeze Date as opposed to First Frost Date. And this goes back to what I have said back a couple of posts about your cloves having approx. 30 days ( after green is seen ) of life support in them to get the plant started feeding on its own. The longer the clove has been in the ground the less cell structure integrety ( It gets soft )it has to fight the freezing and heaving of winter soil. And something most folks aren't factoring in yet is that with the current globle weather patterns that we have at this point in time, El Nino and globle warming, the dates need to be moved back a couple weeks. Search out a current up to date report on these dates for your area. They ain't what they used to be. ( that's a quote from my wife, but she was talking more about me than my garlic....hahaha !!! ) Tip for the day - mulch After your hard freeze. Winter mulching is about soil erosion and ground heaving as opposed to summer mulching which is about weed control and moisture retention.
Well....time to Irish-up me coffee and head out to the grn.house to pay homage to the Growing Gods. May the sun on your back not bring a sweat to your brow today.

Lisaann!
here is a photo (3/25) of my garlic bed!
You see it in the lower right of the pic?
Yahoo and woopie doo, the snow is melting.
Boo-hoo, spring skiing is not going to last too much longer...talk about hydroplaning over ponds of water and streams that were spurting from the mountain side,LOL... skiing sure was fun today...a day I will always remember!
I'm not sure about the garlic problems you are experiencing(?)

Hey! I can't see the pic!
Can anyone see it?

Anyway, I "found" the Russian White I planted very late in the fall & it is just sprouting, so I don't know if it will make it. A few of them had "heaved-up", kinda out of the soil...I threw some soil around them, but should I dig 'em & replant at this point?

They were huge cloves I got from a local organic grower here & he told me to save them for seed, but I planted them late, damed it!

My volunteers were store garlic the year before & I got small bulbs last year. I DID dig it, and still can't figure out why they grew again.

They did not produce scapes at all, so they are softnecks, I guess. It can't be scapes sprouting.

I was also very careful to get them all, and the corms are on the bulbs, right...or could there have been some in the soil, all alone, nearby?

Honestly, I can't figure it out & I might have to go out & dig a couple & see what in the Sam Hell is going on out there!

Sprout - just cover the heaved bulbs with a little dirt, if they have set roots, you'll be ok......the volunteers - softnecks, ok...corms can be on the neck and/or the bulb.....did you pop some out of the stalk as you harvested...?....did you harvest before total dry-down...?...after would mean you had to have left decayed skins behind, which may have held corms in place. They aren't always tight against the finished cloves, but scattered under various layers of the skins....or - you could have virgin soil and it was an imacculate conception Don't dig them up yet, the results won't change if you wait until harvest season, no sense wasting the miricle

No, I can't see the picture either.

Thanks MHG,

It was my 1st time growing garlic & I still have a few of the small bulbs I got...they are still fine, but very small.

I didn't replant those cuz I got the "good" Russian stuff to plant.

I was just about to go out & plant those deeper...I never put leaf mulch on them, hence the heaving, I think.

Nope...still can't figure-out the volunteers. I MAY have harvested a little late cuz we were all debating/comparing how much leaf die down to wait for, and maybe there were some small corms left. Who knows? That must be it!

I guess I will leave them & see what happens, but since they were store-bought originally, maybe I will take a peek!

It's not just a couple, but it's not a huge row, either...I had just planted them in a small block, maybe 3'X 2'...Ok...gotta go look again!

Hmmm...still don't know. There are alot of little bulbil-type things just laying around all over with roots & green leaves & I brought a few in & cut one but those must not be related...no smell. Some kind of flower maybe.

Geez, now I'm gonna have to go actually dig one of the garlic suspects up!

My Russian is growing! Just had little sprouts the other day but now they're a couple inches or so. I don't think they had time to start in the fall. Does this mean I will have to wait to harvest later, and should I put bonemeal around them now, and leave them unmulched, or what?

Lisaann...I hope my dilemmas are helping others, too!

SO MUCH TO LEARN!

Sprout -

Your harvest won't nessasarily be that much later as much as you're just gonna have smaller bulbs than if they would have had the fall head start.

Something to remember also; not all varieties of garlics sprout at the same time, nor are they ready to harvest at the same time. If I could post pictures here I'd show you this year's garlic field of diff. varieties, all easily identifiable because of the diff. amount of green growth showing due to diff. germination times, even though the whole field was planted in the fall over a one week period.

Even I'm not immune to getting a late start on my harvesting, I always seem to think I should wait just a little bit longer....just one more day...and one more day....and one more day....and then "boom!!" I should have started a couple days before !!....I don't know how many years of field notes I have that tell me to start harvest a little earlier the next year hahaha !!!

...go ahead and spread your bone meal, and I think I'd wait on the mulch until I had a stronger top growth showing so that I didn't bury any so much that they couldn't push thru. Had you mulched earlier, they would have "spiked" thru the mulch before unfurling the first leaves. If you don't have too much area to keep on top of your weeds, and you can monitor your soil moisture close enough to not fear of letting it get too dry, you don't have to mulch. Just be sure to keep your dirt up around the necks so that the tops of the bulbs aren't cooking in the sun.

Thanks!
Ok, gonna make sure those babies necks are covered with soil & keep an eye on them!

The guy I got them from (The Russians) grows many varieties organically in Oakfield, NY.

Maybe you are aware of him? Mike Something...a friend of a friend...

sorry about the picture,beansprout!
i rearranged my photobucket album and deleted that 'garlic' photo from the album by mistake.
the photo was a joke because the only thing i had in the garden last Sunday was snow.

LisaAnn !!! Save me !!!....I've gotten TOO involved in other posts....pull my focus back to the garlics, my sanity is in peril !!!

Dearest MooreHaven,

There is no saving you now! HaHa

Is this fun or what!

I had a long post, comuter froze, I lost it, SO, you got lucky! HaHa

Bottom line, I'm learning and loving it.

More people will chime in with garlic questions, as soon as they see ground!

In the meantime, keep us entertained.

You have landed on a site with a lot of witty and intellectual people.

I'm not one of them, But I like hanging with them. Makes me feel good. I love everyone here! Hope you do too.

I think you do!

NopeDon'tWannaAin'tGonnaDoItCan'tMakeMe

Hi Lisa
Here's a update on my garlic finally. I've been busy cleaning up the flower gardens and general yard cleanup.
Ok the garlic I planted the end of October. Which is about 2 weeks later than I normally plant it here in zone 5 Ohio. It hadn't sprouted before it got cold last winter but now it's about 8 inches high and doing well.
Here's a pic of part of the garlic bed:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68375570@N00/441249806/

I don't want to BRAG but my garlic is as high as an elephants eye! Okay, maybe a baby elephant.. a baby elephants knees? Anyway its over a foot tall and looks green and healthy.