Never got my garlic in the ground

[Paquebot]

Sue, pots outside would work. That's exactly what I did with the 12 pots started for friends. Started late, sometime in November, Never got any fall growth but didn't matter. What mattered is that the cloves remained alive. Had I left them until May, good chance that half might be dead. When you hear of some types or varieties which are better at storage than others, that's what it means. Unlike some things that rot at the end of their life, garlic will remain intact but dead. That is what I'm telling you to avoid.

Martin

[bower]

I agree that you can put pots outside, as long as they're well drained they're better off outdoors than in.
I find the flexible hort-style pots with 4 big drain holes on the sides next to the bottom are much better for outdoor variable precip, than the garden type pots with holes in the bottom, as these don't drain as well when soil is frozen. But if you don't have a choice of pot, you could just put a handful of snow on top (for moisture when it thaws) and cover them with a tarp to prevent ice dams from forming if you have a rainy thaw and freeze. (That's what happens here, you get rain when the soil is frozen so it doesn't soak in, it freezes on top. This will kill garlic pretty reliably.)

[Sue_CT]

How deep does the soil need to be is the biggest thing I need to know. A pot will freeze solid around here, they have to be able to survive that, and have enough soil for the roots, and I don't know how deep that needs to be. Costco already has potting soil, but it gets expensive so I don't want to make it a lot deeper than it needs to be for them to reach full size. I have lots of grow bags not being used but they take a huge amount of soil.

[Paquebot]

Most of my pots are 7-S, stands for 7 squat, but any 7-gallon works great. We found a deal 5 years ago for 24 for less than $100. Worth every penny. If you have to buy from a garden center, a lot more. Mush of my garden is now pots as one can virtually double production of many things.

But we're talking garlic here. And pots would freeze. Ground also freezes. Doesn't matter to garlic. We can have frost so deep that water lines break 6' deep in open winters. Garlic comes up smiling. At We Grow Garlic one time, brought in a landscape straw blower and covered the field. A week later it was somewhere in the next county and the field was bare. No problem. I'd already proved that years ago. Think of something. Of you are growing a lot of different hardnecks, what's your biggest bugaboo? It's volunteers which had absolutely no protection.

If you go the pot way, which will be found to be practical, additional protection is optional. We Grow Garlic site is no longer active but there were pictures of garlic which had come up into the snow. I had seen the same thing at home and possibly expect to see it this year with a foot of snow cover at the moment.

I don't have my forum and Facebook avatar here but if you find it it's a picture of me holding two 3½" Martin's bulbs at We Grow Garlic. I think that they were from a late-October planting when Mike and I planted 3,200 cloves in frozen ground using a battery-powered bulb auger. He'd drill holes while I exploded bulbs. He'd drop and I try to scrape enough soil to barely cover the cloves. No straw mulch that year. No problem!

Now, try to find any excuse to not get those cloves started on their way to making you deliriously happy!

Martin

[svalli]

I have successfully planted during spring many garlic varieties, which should be planted already at fall, because I got the seed cloves too late and ground was frozen solid. I moved the cloves to refrigerator in January and started to pot them to Rootrainer cells in end of February or March. I had to keep the pots in the cool garage to protect them from freezing and later in the spring moved outdoors. When the ground finally thaws in end of May, I have planted the plants to ground.

All of that is so much work that I try nowadays limit how many I do plant during spring. This season I left for spring only one Silverskin variety, which is not hardy and I plant those to Rootrainers after vernalization in the refrigerator. Many people here plant Silverskins directly to ground as soon as the ground can be worked, but our field thaws so late that it would make harvest quite late. Starting the plants in pots makes the garlic ready to be harvested same time as the ones planted during fall.

I do not know how the climate in Connecticut is during spring, but if there is a risk that the potted soil would freeze before the garlic has rooted, I would not plant them yet. I think that the best solution is put the garlic into the refrigerator for vernalization and plant in ground as soon as the ground can be worked.

Sari

[Paquebot]

Although Karen no longer maintains the We Grow Garlic site, it is still available on the Wayback Machine. Go there and search for www.wegrowgarlic.com. There are some interesting pictures and accounts including March 14, 2010. That was when the snow melted and fields were full of gnarled sprouts that were not there before the snow. As long as the soil was above freezing, they were growing.

Martin

[Paquebot]

For those in the "Snow belt", how many had garlic growing under a foot or more of snow? Our first major snow was light but up to 8" and just kept getting deeper through the winter. Last fall, I had to look hard to find a tiny green button just peeking through the ground. The snow is melting and there are spears to 4" or more. With the snow being loose, there was little resistance and therefore kept going straight up instead of bending over. That attests to the hardiness of garlic.

Martin

[rxkeith]

i would have to have a really long shoot poking up martin.
we still have over two feet of snow on the ground here.
i guess i will wait a bit to see whats growing.


keith

[Sue_CT]

Snow is melting around here, although low temps are still in the 20's at night. Soon I hope to try getting them into the ground. I doubt I will get large well developed cloves at harvest, but I hope to get some scapes and some usable smaller garlic. At least I hope they won't go completely to waste.

[wykvlvr]

Mine are still sitting in fridge waiting for the ground to thaw... it will be interesting to see how well we both do.

[bower]

Sooner the better!
I have some grains to plant this spring, and the same feeling - soon as you can. They'll get some juice from any later frosts so early, early!

[wykvlvr]

I am surprised but my garlic has done very well. We have harvested 5 plants and we have more still growing. I should have plenty to save back one of each type for next year.