i have my garlic bed mulched with several inches of pine needles that someone maybe here that visited
suggest i use. i have never had garlic sprout late in the year here. too short of time between october, and
november snow for it to do anything, but grow roots. i am hoping the pine needles sink down, and create a nice
light mat for the garlic to poke through in the spring, and keep the weeds down. nothing more tedious than trying
to weed garlic.


keith

Cornelius_Gotchberg wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 12:28 pm @GoDawgs "The garlic has been popping up this week"

Had to look twice to make sure this wasn't posted from Down Under by the talented @Whwoz

When did you's plant it?

The Gotch

I just now saw this so sorry for the delay in answering! It was planted Oct 15th which is the suggested time for this area. The goal is to have it up and rooted in before cold weather settles in. It's mulched with leaves and is looking good so far. A few skips in the Siberian though and I've decided to replace it next year with something else. I'll get a photo later today.

We never see newly planted garlic breaking the soil surface here before spring. But last season I had a few smaller bulbs that must've died down early and were missed, and their shoots came up in the fall. They actually survived in spite of the low snow winter and zero mulch - I transplanted them to the end of a row and they produced small bulbs again.
The hardnecks I grow here are nearly impervious to spring freeze and thaw - a condition we have without fail! Sometimes a few tips get yellowed, but they carry on and outgrow that with no problem. I do plant pretty deep about 4 inches down, which might help.
I guess it depends on the severity of your low temperatures too... we freeze and thaw a lot, even all winter long, but we don't get the extreme low temperatures that are typical of the continental climate. A friend of ours in northern BC lost her entire garlic crop one year due to severe cold with no snow cover!
I got all the garlic in and mulched last weekend, except for one softneck which I wanted to make a separate patch for if I have time. If not I may plant them in spring instead, along with some extra bulbs set aside to try for large rounds.
I changed my spacing this time to give more room and hopefully grow some bigger bulbs. So only 200 so far, at the wider spacing. I dropped one variety, Persian Star, which my friend grows anyway so it is easy to recover if I wanted to. And since the porcelains are so similar to one another, I planted uneven amounts just based on the size of cloves. I'm also planning to fertilize in the spring with some fish ferts, without fail! Something I often think about then forget to do it.

Living in the midwest I'm familiar with cold. Our frost line routinely gets to 2- 4 feet. Usually hardneck goes in about the 2nd week of October, in loose very well drained soil, planted a good 4" deep. This gets mulched hard with leaves early in November. It will show above the leaves anytime now, so about 3" above ground. There should be no crop loss with or without a blanket of snow. This ground won't freeze tight until mid to late December. The key to getting garlic off and running in March is well drained soils. Rot will not happen if water moves through the root zone. To the growers north of me in Wisc. & Mich., the shoots you see in December are making roots for a strong April pop. If water moves through your dirt this is what you want.

After returning from visiting the grave site of my Dear late Mother on her 95th Birthday, and upon collecting the day's mail, the lovely and long suffering Mrs. Gotch claimed excitedly "you's got a package from...Finland?"

Sari's promised package of garlic bulbils had arrived, and if there's ever been a more painstakingly complete packing job...welp...I just ain't seen it! In an effort to thank her for her generosity, I sent some Sweet Pepper (Mama Mia Giallo, Giant Marconi, Goliath Sweet) and a few native WESconsin Cuke (Wautoma Heirloom) seeds yesterday.

The Gotch

That package has crossed Atlantic now three times, since it was used already for trading bulbils between me and Bower. The foam between the boxes prevents the bulbils being crushed and spreading garlic smell during transit. It has served us well

Sari

Only six (6) weeks before them there li'l spears break the surface, in these here parts, leastways; anyone else gettin' a little antsy?

And howse about @Whwoz from Down Under; any Southern Hemisphere Garlic Harvest pics to share?

The Gotch

Now THIS is early...and promising! The Gotch

Faith and Begorrah..a little GREEN on St. Paddy's Day!

You could set your watch to the first Garlic Shoot (in the lower beds) breaking the surface on March 15th.

Snow cover prevented confirmation two (2) days ago, but this afternoon? PAYDIRT!.

1st image: Lower bed showing signs of life/2nd image: Upper bed (sunnier, & up late February) coming along. The Gotch

Très late for these here parts, but all cloves appear to be up-n-at-'em; the peace-of-mind/full-speed-ahead ALL Garlic Ranchers anxiously await! The Gotch

White Mulch... The Gotch

yeah, we got that.


keith

Crop coming along nicely, thickly stalked and marvelously verdant; five (5) weeks 'til scaping-n-ten (10) weeks 'til harvest. The Gotch

We had a heavy rain today which has really refreshed the little garlic sprouts.
I have rows of all different varieties in a couple of places which I specially prepped and spaced wider to try and make bigger bulbs for seed this year. What surprised me is that the Porcelains are slower coming up than the Marbled Purple Stripes. Some of the MPS were literally poking up through the snowbank as it melted. They all looked a bit reddish like they'd been up already under the snow. Greened up nicely now.
Very interesting to see how the two different groups respond so differently to weather extremes.
This pic from a couple of days ago - about where you were in early April, Gotch. Porcelains in the two back rows, front rows are MPS.

@Bower; NICE spacing, something to which I rarely pay more than lip service....

The best part about them there li'l green spears poking up? No longer having to dread that they may not.

When's yer usual scaping & harvest times, middle of June and the 3rd-4th week in July, respectively, here.

The Gotch

@Cornelius_Gotchberg scapes are usually in mid July, harvest in mid August. But we have a tendency to very late springs here and some occasional cold summers, which can put that way out of whack. Some miserable summers we didn't harvest until September. Now and then we had a very early spring and harvest was early August. We never know what to expect here, it varies a lot.

Today's rain made it all look better. Just to show how different groups are doing in this small bed. Glazers were smaller cloves to begin with so coming up slower and smaller as expected. Porcelains are the largest cloves generally, and biggest plants, so they're catching up. All the Marbled Purple Stripes looking amazing!!! And thanks so much @svalli because it's an eye opener how different kinds are riding the roller coaster, and so, so nice to be growing many kinds!

This thread should be in the garlic section. I looked for it a few times.

I'm saw my first scapes yesterday, on last year's lost test garlic. They were garlic rounds shovel transplanted Mar last year that stayed rounds and the leaves died back, stranding the now larger rounds in July. They popped back up this spring and were growing great, and are now starting scapes. Seems early. But I will have to look closely at my Dec planted main crop to see if they started scapes yet.

Besides the main bed and those holdover test garlic, I have some RGGS buckets started with bulbils from two start dates this month. I would love to be able to grow out last year's bulbils for just a few months in buckets, and have them senesce as enlarged rounds that I can easily collect and transplant to a main bed in autumn. Everyone seems to think it will take 2 seasons, not just 1 season, to grow bulbils large enough for main crop use. I will probably do one more planting in a few days to have three test sets. The second set came up real quick.

1st Scapes yesterday/12 days early per rolling average (Namio Heirloom left background): Most are VERY thick stemmed and healthy (Boxcar Willie photo-bombing lower left) Could be in for a GREAT CROP! The Gotch

Nice to see it... now I know where my extra degree days are gone this year. Enjoy!