Northern Hemisphere Garlic Ranchers/2024 Crop

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

Finished gradin'-n-shuckin' ~350 cloves from last season's bumper crop.
Now (and the Gotch, @MissS, @DriftlessRoots, @jmsieglaff, and other WESconsin TJers, haven't said this in a while) if it would just STOP RAINING!

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The Gotch

[DriftlessRoots]

It’s true! Though this wet ground will make it easier to pull out the rest of everything that needs pulling ahead of tomorrow’s deep freeze

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

It’s true! Though this wet ground will make it easier to pull out the rest of everything that needs pulling ahead of tomorrow’s deep freeze

The Deep Freeze isn't until Sunday a.m.; we best make hay!

The Gotch

[DriftlessRoots]

It’s true! Though this wet ground will make it easier to pull out the rest of everything that needs pulling ahead of tomorrow’s deep freeze

The Deep Freeze isn't until Sunday a.m.; we best make hay!

The Gotch

*forehead slap* I didn’t plant any hay!!

[rxkeith]

i got the last of my garlic cloves planted just a couple days ago, some where between 220 to 240.
had to. with six days off in a row i had no excuses. we have used up the good weather days it appears.
we have had a few days of rain. today, it was most of the day rain. temps will be dropping into the 20s
come the week end, and you know what that does to rain.

now i did set aside 60+ marble sized garlic bulbils that i will be trying to sneak into my wifes garden. those
will produce either small bulbs of garlic or some large rounds. weather has to improve a good bit for that to happen.


keith

[bower]

Four beds planted here, mulched with raked leaves and wired down with chicken wire to keep whomsoever from digging them up and of course keeping the mulch from blowing off as it would. 135 of the big bulbed types at 10 " rows, 8" spacing, and 108 of the smaller bulbed, still growing up varieties at 10" rows and 7 " spacing for a total 243.
I have bulbils to go in as well, from two varieties.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

350 cloves in the ground, last big project of the year!

Temperature cooled considerably during...LOTTA bending over...feel like I've been rode hard and put away wet.

THAT won't keep me from celebrating National American Beer Day! viewtopic.php?p=108886#p108857

The Gotch

[JRinPA]

Too early.

Honestly I haven't decided where yet. I may rotate my main tomatoes....maybe garlic down their middle. I certainly don't require the spacing I have given the garlic the last couple years, using the woven black mulch. But I sure love the weed suppression from it.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

Too early.

Shoot...later'n last year, am I right...? viewtopic.php?t=3917#p81005

The Gotch

[zeedman]

Still haven't got mine in yet. The very late freeze was a mixed blessing; the best time to plant (historically after the Oct 5th average freeze) was instead spent in harvesting a bumper crop of tomatoes & peppers. Then - rain, rain, and more rain. Even a couple inches of snow, which is just now melting. All cloves have been separated & are ready to go. Hopefully they will get planted tomorrow (20 each of 8 varieties) if the weather cooperates... and nothing but another wet week ahead if it doesn't.

I conducted an experiment this year, with interesting results. Because I had cloves of several varieties survive the Winter in good condition, I planted a few to see if (1) that would be a valid rescue strategy, should Fall-planted cloves fail; and (2) whether Spring-planted cloves would perform differently vs. Fall-planted. I planted 3 cloves each of an artichoke, a porcelain, and a marbled purple stripe.

The artichoke variety came up sickly & died. The other two - both hard necks - grew as soft necks, without forming scapes. I lost the locations of what was where, which became an issue. One variety fell over in September, much like onions do. When dug, they had formed large 1.5-2" single cloves, with just the beginning of basal cloves similar to elephant garlic. The other variety, when dug, had formed no bulb at all, and was basically just a large garlic scallion. So since I REALLY liked the single-clove garlic, I'll be repeating the experiment again next year, in larger numbers (and with better record keeping ).

[rxkeith]

i remember martin saying he knew of people spring planting garlic, and getting full size bulbs later in the year.
i haven't been able to do it. the one time i spring planted garlic was out of necessity. someone had gifted me
three varieties of garlic. i got them mid to late november. we had about a foot of snow on the ground, and it
wasn't going away any time soon. i stored the bulbs in the fridge, and spring planted them as early as i could.
still snow on the ground, but so what. i ended up with smallish bulbs, but when i replanted them in the fall i
got full size bulbs the following year. i can spring plant to save a variety, but fall planting is necessary at least
for me in order to get full size bulbs.


keith

[bower]

I spring planted some cloves of a softneck "Germidour" this year to try and get large rounds instead of small bulbs. Spaced at 4" apart and 6" spacing between the two rows, so very close together. I waited until May to plant because of the late spring and the video someone posted about getting mostly rounds from late spring plantings vs early ones. The majority of the cloves did make rounds, only a couple made bulbs, so I'm counting that a success.
That giant clove looks awesome @zeedman

[steve ok]

Finished planting 195 cloves. 12 hardneck varieties and 3 softneck varieties. Also about 35 bulbils of 3 varieties.

[rxkeith]

i got those 60 plus large bubils planted in my wifes garden along with a bunch of
martins heirloom garlic bulbils. shhhhhhhhh. don't tell her. she can find out in the spring.
also planted some daffodils and crocus in the main garden. my wife likes daffodils.


keith

[JRinPA]

Finally got the garlic in, the last two days.
I planted my "test" garlic first. I had grown garlic in buckets this year, 5 different runs, trying to get bulbils to big rounds. Well, I thought it worked pretty well, months back when I harvested them. But wow, almost all of them have rotted, one way or another, from then until now. Stored in paper bags at 60F. I guess if I ever do that again, they have to go back in the ground for the overwinter within a month or so. I was shocked, really. #5, bulbils planted in late May, the last bucket planted, they had zero healthy rounds to plant.

I have plenty of garlic bulbs so I really don't know why I am bothering with bulbils. I guess it was to try to break any disease or pest cycles.

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[JRinPA]

I planted the remainder of the bed (4 rows by 9" space between, about 6" in row spacing) with regular cloves. I did not do my usual baking soda soak, peel, and alcohol rinse. I just put them directly in, most in paper. I rototilled, then used a bulb planter for the hole, laid a clove in, and backfilled a bit. The regular bulbs I marked A to S, so I used parts of 19 bulbs. 23ftx4rowsx2perft=192, so that is roughly what was planted there. After raking smooth to level and fill the holes, I laid solid black woven mulch and topped that with wood chips for more insulation and to hold it down. That will be removed in 2-3 months. There will be no plastic mulch on that bed from Mar to July, so weeds will be somewhat of an issue.

I used most of the cloves from each bulb, and my bulbs have 12+ cloves. So some were nice and big, most were not really that big, but the smallest did get passed over for planting stock. I don't expect bulbs as big as the last few years.

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Today I planted another 9 ft x 4 ft. This time I used the black woven mulch that I burned holes in for the first year I corralled this garlic into a raised bed. This 9ft also got rototilled, then black mulch tacked down, and then cloves planted directly through. I was gonna skip some rows, but then went ahead and planted every hole. I can't remember if that mat had 108 holes? It is pretty many. So all told I have about 300+ bulbs in 32x4=128 sq ft. Quite a bit tighter than the last couple years and 2x as many.

Another thing that I noted, I would say that the nicest, cleanest bulbs, with least rot or thin papers at the top, were the ones that were planted upside down last year. Those ones with the very crooked neck. In the above pics, letter O is one such - it came up sideways if not upside-down. I'm thinking there's less start of rot because they had to grow down and out before up. So when they start to die back, or get the scape pulled, then any water that gets down there can't settle on top of the bulb. Of course I just thought that through now...I could have planted a whole row upside down to test that.

I do plan to plant okra into these beds. Not sure how I will do it exactly, but that is the plan, garlic out in early July, okra already in there and ready to take off.

[jmsieglaff]

And here we are the deep freeze was a fake and we're still not frozen. I haven't checked to see if garlic is growing under the straw mulch. Snow this morning sure looks nice though!

[steve ok]

Finished planting 195 cloves. 12 hardneck varieties and 3 softneck varieties. Also about 35 bulbils of 3 varieties.

In the mild winter Pacific Northwest about 70% of my cloves have already sprouted after 6 1/2 weeks.
We will get some freezes during the winter, but they do not affect the garlic.

I also have some purple sprouting broccoli that is doing great. I should be able to harvest all winter and into spring.

[bower]

No snow here, and we're definitely frozen solid after last night. -9C/ around 15F this morning. It is pretty late not to have at least intermittent snow cover, we haven't had much at all. Hope the mulch is enough!

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

Less than six (6) months 'til Harvest!

The Gotch