Nice!!! Your leaves look thinner than mine do. Different kind of garlic? What is the recommended spacing? I think mine are 6" on centers.

Pepperhead,

Lovely soldiers!

I can just see you skipping out to admire your garden everyday!

Can we get a picture of that?! HaHa

.........just a bump to make ya look.....hahaha !!!! ( insert maniacle laughter here )

Now that you made me look it actually made me think too! I have a couple of questions cross my mind regarding when to plant.If fall is the right time to plant garlic why are there catalogs that sell spring time garlic? Are there any garlic varieties out there that should be planted in the spring instead of in the fall?

Hi Bluestreak,

I may have started this thread a long, long time ago, but I never had anwers only encouragement to grow it. And now I depend on my Buddy Moorehaven to provide the answers to any given garlic question!

Yep, this is fun!

And you can bet that he will have an answer for you!

In the meantime, I still think any garlic, no matter what the type or variety, does best planted in the fall.

Hope Moorehaven begs to differ! Makes it more exciting.

Damn it Lisa !!.....you just ruined another set of my hats !!

Hey Blue -

Glad ya dropped in. ( don't pay Lisa no-never-mind, she thinks I'm alot bigger garlic rockstar than I do )

Couple of thoughts come to mind in answer to your query. Fall planting is best because of the time frame required to grow garlic up to it's full potental, Mother N. divides and plants in the fall, fall planting allows you to have garlic growing instead of waiting for your ground to be workable in the spring. Actually most things can be seeded in the late fall /early winter just before your ground freezes. It's just riskier when your stomach depends on it. But that wasn't your question, which brings us to a new paragraph........

Basicly, it comes down to human behavior and marketing.
Human behavior because by the time you've sweated and toiled in your dirt all summer, most people are tired of their garden ( present company excluded of course ). Producing our own food is no longer a nessesity in our lifetime like our forefathers, thus regulating it down to a "past-time" for many. The holidays start taking up our time. And money. It isn't until we've been cooped up all winter, starting to hunger for the taste of something fresh, that our thoughts turn to how much we enjoyed (insert selective memory here - hahaha !! ) all the hours we spent outside playing with green plants in the warm sun. Now comes in the marketing; You'll notice your catalogs start showing up about the same time, and since garlic can be spring planted to produce a viable bulb that is capable of replicating itself, it's treated as just another seed stock.

No, I'm not aware of any garlics that are "spring specific".

I'm not a big fan of "catalog" garlic. Too many are marketing "overseas" stock. And not all garlics are best suited for every area, so you're always better off to search out a regional source. Not to mention I'm a tad biased towards supporting a small farmer making a living growing and marketing a quality product.

..........hope you're not too disappointed that I didn't put up more of a fight, Lisaann

Thanks for the replys(both lisaann and moorehaven).I had been a spring planter when I have included garlic in the line-up for the growing season.Last fall while trying to learn more about cover crop options I stumbled back into the seed area of johnny's and ended up ordering elephant and german extra hardy garlic.I've already seen enough difference this early into the season to convince me fall planting should be the way to go.

Another line of thought is that the colder the fall planted garlic overwintered under, the more depth in the garlic's flavor.....true or not, I couldn't tell ya.
Another advantage to fall planting is if you're gonna have a crop failure early on, you've still got the late spring planting to help you recover from it.

I was disappointed to see Johnny's was marketing Chinese seed this year. I could understand if it was regional specific, but it was common stuff, bell peppers to be exact. Printed right on the back of the seed packetts. I think we may be getting closer to a time when that's gonna be a bain to their marketing stratagy. Kinda like Wal-Mart's and Whole Foods' "organics".

Now you got me wanting to harvest already. The colder the winter temps. the more flavor? We hit a stretch of weather for about a week of -10º.We haven't seen temps. like that for many years around here.
After joining here I started looking closer at where things come from and I do agree I'm not happy with where alot of stuff is truely coming from.I've been visiting more of the small local sites folks here have been mentioning.I do plan on ordering from those kinds of places in the future.

blue -

Are you going to try and market your scapes.....?

No I'm only a small time home gardener right now.When I can finally move in the future I might consider growing on a large enough scale to sell to others.

.......anybody else like cookin' with their scapes......??

Tornadoes and flooding last nite, calling for more of the same tonite....my garlic has been sorely abused by Mother N. this year.

I would love to know what you cook up with you snapes. I should have hundreds this year. That is because I didn't pick all of the snapes off the plants I have on a bank and the snapes have gone to seed over the last few years and are taking over the bank. A take over I can welcome for a change!

SO please direct me towards Scape recipes!

Was - basicly for me and my culinary skills, I cut coils when tender, dice like a chive, and about anything you'd like to add a mild garlic undertone to. Baked potato maybe ? Pick your first one and take a raw nip off the end to taste it, you can take it from there. There are alot of recipes on the web you can find easy enough. But being a "manly sort of guy", I don't use recipes........hahahaha !!!

Message to all my garlic grower friends:

On the advice of MooreHavenGarden, Instead of a Summer thread, June 21, I will do a June 10th post, so we don't miss anyones harvesting!

I will call It "Garlic Round Up".

In that thread MooreHaven will tell us what to look for to know it is ready to harvest.

He will tell us how to cure it properly, and so on.

Now, he has already touched to these topics some, so you guys won't be overwhelmed with this info then, if you go back and read the posts already here now.

This way, you will already be ready, if your garlic is ready before the round up!

Did you get all that? HaHa

Okay, I'm just trying to watch out for everyone, so that we get the best crop of garlic ever.

Now, I do realise, we have to get through some pitifal weather also, to have everything work.

On that note,

I hope all of you are safe and sound.


Stupid weather and tornados!