Garlic

Knowing nothing about growing garlic; I ordered a southern sampler from Gourmet Garlic Gardens

Oct 26 planting

Ajo Rojo - purple pot - creole (softneck)
Very rich garlic flavor - medium to hot pungency when raw - harvest in midseason - stores 8 to 10 months

California Early - green pot - artichoke (softneck)
 Rich mellow garlic flavor - medium warm pungency when raw - harvest early in season - stores 6 months

Siberian - blue pot - marbled purple stripe (hardneck)
very rich garlic flavor - very little pungency when raw - harvests mid July - stores all through winter

Red Toch - red pot west side shed - artichoke (softneck)
Rich mellow garlic flavor - very little pungency when raw - harvests in early summer - stores into midwinter

And one more whose bed is not yet ready ...

I followed the instructions in the package to a T; but I perhaps should have prechilled in the frig for 40 days.  Note to self; try that with one of the store bought organics.

Included instructions created and fully credited to Gourmet Garlic Gardens (posted here because I loose stuff)

Plant garlic in October, (after the temp have cooled) in a sunny part of your garden where garlic has not been grown for at least three years - garlic grows best in soils where crops have been rotated.  Work up and loosen top six inches of fertile garden soil.

The night before your soil is ready to plant, break bulbs apart into cloves and soak the separated cloves overnight in water containing one heaping tablespoon of baking soada per gallon (also adding a TBSP of liquid seaweed, would be even better) or until clove covers loosen around the cloves (about 16 hours).  Just before planting, remove the cloves from the water, drain and dip the cloves in a dish of rubbing alcohol for 3 to 5 minutes, long enough for the alcohol to penetrate the clove covers, and plant immediately.  These soakings are important and help protect both your garlic and your garden soil from possible pathogens or pests and aslo stimulate rooting so your garlic gets off to a good fast start.

Plant the4 individual cloves, bottom (root) end down, with the bottom of the clove being 2" deep in the South ...  and planted six inches apart from each other.  Lay a few inches of organic mulch over them and water as needed.

While garlic doesn't need much fertilizer, a little organic compost in the early spring helps.  Water weekly or as needed to keep the roots from drying out.  .... Since garlic's roots are on its bottom, you can carefully dig down and look at the bulb area to see how they are developing occasionally.

In the spring hardneck  send up a stalk called a scape that will develop a bulbil capsule.  If you cut the scape before it fully forms, the bulb will grow a little bigger; if not, it will store a little longer.

History Class Notes (interesting stuff)

"True garlic (species: Allium sativum) has two subspecies, softneck (sativum) and hardneck (ophioscorodon – ophios for short). Allium sativum sativum has two varieties, Silverskin and Artichoke. Supermarket garlic is almost all Silverskin garlic from China or California. Silverskins can be planted mechanically and are good keepers. We do not grow Silverskins. We have a few Artichokes on the Other Garlics page.
Our understanding of the structure of the garlic family tree is evolving as mapping the genes of the varieties and subvarieties continues. Previously there were thought to be five major groupings referred to as varieties. Hardnecks were classified as Porcelain, Rocambole and Purple Stripe (with the subvarieties Marbled Purple Stripe and Glazed Purple Stripe), and softnecks were classified as Artichokes (with the subvarieties Creole, Asiatic and Turban). Currently there are considered to be ten varieties, eight ophios and two softnecks. The ophios (Allium sativum ophioscorodon) include five true hardneck varieties (Porcelain, Rocambole, Purple Stripe, Marbled Purple Stripe and Glazed Purple Stripe) and three weakly bolting hardnecks that often produce softnecks (Creole, Asiatic and Turban).
The hardneck varieties do well in the cooler Canadian climates. Hardneck refers to the scape, or flower stalk, with its topset of bulbils. Hardnecks take a little more care to grow because they need to be hand planted right side up, and to have their scapes snipped off. They repay that effort with a wealth of large bulbs and a dazzling choice of robust and subtle, intriguing and delicious flavours.

This information has been gleaned from Bob Anderson’s overview of the garlic family tree. His article gives more information on the varieties of garlic and the ongoing research."

I found a message thread from a garlic grower in Sanford; his interesting observations included:

• non-chilled never formed bulbs
• early October is too early to plant
• try asiatic and turbin garlic, as they do well in tropical asia
• turbin garlic does not store well because it can't be stopped from sprouting

Hmm, that most have been a turbin garlic I bought that sprouted and I planted out in the NE bed.  Well, I planted 2 sprouted cloves.  Early October, they both died from heat.

More Lessons from Growing Garlic

Preparing Cloves for Planting

Shortly before planting break the bulbs apart into cloves. This is called ‘cracking’. The cloves are attached to the basal plate, the plate that the roots grow from. When you crack the bulb each clove should break away cleanly, leaving an intact ‘footprint’ on the basal plate. The root nodules begin growing from edge of the footprint. With true hardneck garlics you can crack them by giving the woody stem a sharp rap on a hard surface. If the basal plate stays attached to the clove you may be able to flick it off. Be careful not to damage the footprint. It is more important to keep the clove intact than to remove the basal plate.
Set aside the very small cloves to eat soon, to make into pickles, to dry, or to plant tightly together for eating in the spring, like green onions. Each larger clove will produce a good sized bulb by the end of the growing season. The smallest cloves require just as much space, care and attention in the garden and produce significantly smaller bulbs.

Watering Garlic

Garlic requires fairly even soil moisture during the growing season with no additional moisture during the last few weeks. Mulch is one way of maintaining an even moisture regime. Not enough moisture means that garlic does not develop a full sized bulb. Over watering results in garlic with poor keeping qualities - poor wrappers, burst skins and mould. Also, it is harder to cure garlic that has been over watered.
One of the arts of garlic growing is knowing when and how much to water. We leave a couple of early scapes on each bed and when they stand up straight that is usually one of our signals to stop watering. We stop watering two to three weeks after cutting scapes.

Tip - Steam or Stir Fry Garlic Tops
The garlic tops, called flowers or garlic scapes, are a gourmet delight! Steam them whole and serve with melted butter like asparagus. Cut them into short lengths to add to a stir fry. They have a delicate garlic flavour which gives a subtly different and delicious flavour to the sauce.

Just When do you harvest garlic?  Well, there are actually 3 stages of harvest; this article 'Harvesting Garlic by Paul Pospisil' is excellent.

The information included with my order had this tidbit:

Your garlic's leaves will tell you when it wants to be harvested.  The will do this by beginning to turn brown from the bottom of the plant upward.  When only the top five or six leaves are still green, that is the time to harvest.  Exceptions to this general rule are the Asiatic varieties (weakly bolting which include asiatic and turbin) - they need to be harvested soon after their lower leaves start to turn brown.

So, assuming everything goes along peachy-keen; just how do I save seed for next year?  Daughter of the Soil: A Seed Savers Guide had this to say:

Garlic
Garlic is a plant that no longer bothers to set seed in the conventional sense. It's normally propagated by dividing and replanting the cloves. Save healthy bulbs from the regular harvest and leave them intact until planting time (autumn).

If you allow garlic to flower it will produce a huge number of bulbils in the flower head instead of seed. These are essentially miniature cloves and can be saved for planting. They take two years to produce full-size bulbs, but have the advantage that they're less likely to carry diseases. Cross-pollination is not an issue because the bulbils are produced asexually and are therefore genetically identical to the parent plant.

Picture Status on Nov 5