Northern Hemisphere Garlic Ranchers/2024 Crop

[rossomendblot]

Luckily we don't have the allium leaf miner here yet (though we do have the beet, brassica and celery leaf miners), but it's in the south of the UK and will probably make it's way North at some point. I'm not looking forward to having to net my garlic.

Garlic rust has arrived here already, though 3 or 4 weeks later than last year. The garlic it's on will be ready to harvest in a couple of weeks, so hopefully it won't affect them too much.

[GoDawgs]

Yesterday was garlic digging day, at least for the Lorz Italian (on the left side) and the new-to-me Polish White, on the right. They're both softneck artichoke types, good for growing in warmer areas and were planted October 12th. The Siberian is in a different bed and not quite ready yet. That one is a hardneck purple stripe turban. It's just now starting to put up scapes.

24.05.27 Lorz (l), Polish (r).JPG

I'm really impressed with the Polish White,. I had no trouble picking out larger bulbs to set aside for replanting this fall.

24.05.27 Polish White freshly dug.JPG

24.05.27 Polish white garlic.JPG

I took them under the shed to sort and tie in groups, then hung them from the middle of the shed. I was afraid if I hung them near the sides they'd get wet if a really blowy rain came through.

24.05.27 Polish White (f), Lorz Italian (r).JPG

In two weeks I'll clip the roots and the already dried foliage and then hang them from the rafters in the tool shed with a fan blowing on them for another week. By then they should be ready to bring inside. If not, another week in the shed.

[GoDawgs]

@JRinPA, I've not seen any evidence of ALM yet down here but it's always good to know what could be coming one's way. So I've been reading more articles on it. In one article a guy from Rodale trialed various colors of row cover and found reflective silver worked best. Then a couple of guys from Cornell said you can apply spinosad to the roots of onion, scallion and leek transplants for 90% control which would eliminate the need to spray. The article:
https://gardenerspath.com/how-to/diseas ... af-miners/

"Spinosad is an organic insecticide derived from the fermentation of certain bacteria.

Drs. Nault and Fleischer found that applying this product to the roots of transplant onions, scallions, and leeks or to the soil in plug trays for plant starts reduced the amount of damage by 90 percent after transplantation.

Grundberg and Rusinek concluded that the combination of a reflective mulch with two applications of spinosad combined with the horticultural soap M-Pede, available on Amazon, can reduce the damage to acceptable levels so that the alliums could be sold commercially."

https://gardenerspath.com/how-to/diseas ... af-miners/

[JRinPA]

Yeah I read all that a while back and again last month. I especially like the one where you are supposed to plant radishes before alliums to make them more pungent. Change the flavor of your garden crop on purpose?

Shiny silver mulch and heavily price controlled OMRI $tuff... That would be beautiful. All that is a lot money for no reason other than someone's carelessness, or, someone's greed and deceitfulness. I think it more likely the latter.

One thing is for sure, tunnels don't work, my onions that were tunneled look horrible with broken leaves.

I really don't know what to do with the garlic. I had plans for garlic. I half expected this ALM to cause problems with the onions due to what Brownrexx said a few years back. But it never seemed to affect the garlic in storage that much until last season, maybe the year before. I thought I was doing a poorer job of curing it. Now I'm pretty certain it the ALM.

I used spinosad once already, should do it again after the next rain. But a lot of my onions, particularly transplants, are already curled up and dying/rotting.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

HeyZeus Alou @GoDawgs, you's sure that 3rd image in (viewtopic.php?p=124382#p124382) isn't an onion...?

Anywho, in these here parts, the scapes have arrived two (2) weeks early on what is shaping up to be a BANNER YEAR...God willin' & the crick don't rise...

thumbnail_IMG_2860.jpg

The Gotch

[JRinPA]

Think it was two days back I looked and saw the starts of the scapes coming up. Sprayed the second round of spinosad. They look great at glance, but I know better.

[GoDawgs]

HeyZeus Alou @GoDawgs, you's sure that 3rd image in (viewtopic.php?p=124382#p124382) isn't an onion...?

The Gotch

Nope! All garlic.

[rossomendblot]

Here's the Iberian Wight, harvested 27th May, drying on an IKEA clothes rack in the attic.

iberian wight 2024.jpg

[GoDawgs]

@rossomendblot , that's some nice sizeable looking garlic!

We've had moderate temp, breezy days since I dug mine so they're drying well under the pole shed.

[bower]

Yea @rossomendblot nice score!!
Memo to self: see extra clothes rack....

[rossomendblot]

Yep, very happy with that harvest. It's a variety I've been saving since 2017. Super early, which allows me to follow the garlic with summer crops, and it stores until about December. Two years ago this variety got badly hit with rust early on, and a very dry spring and lack of watering produced a lot of very small bulbs. Last year I grew what was left in the greenhouse instead to prevent the rust and build up the seed stock again. This strain is pure white whereas the version the producer sells now is later and has purple streaking.

[JRinPA]

Drying in the attic...not in MY attic. It gets like 100F up there. Ranch house, basically just a crawlspace.

That looks great, and very early.

[svalli]

Looks good @rossomendblot ! I ordered seed garlic from The Garlic Farm on the Isle of Wight before brexit and got free sample of Iberian Wight with my order. Unfortunately softnecks do not grow well here and I stopped trialing with after couple of seasons.

I do still have two good porcelain varieties Moravian Giant and Red Duke which I ordered from there.