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I mistakenly bought my garlic in spring! Now what?

dowbright
13 years ago

I've learned since purchasing that my area (St. Louis) plants garlic in Fall, for harvesting mid-spring (or sometme around then).

So I have $9 stuck in these heads--How can I use them best, or can they be saved until fall somehow?

OR!!!!! ANY ideas or suggestions are so very welcome.

Even experiments will be considered...they're fun!

I feel like an idiot!

Thanks,

Paula

Comments (6)

  • wcthomas
    13 years ago

    Hi Paula,

    It is highly unlikely these bulbs will last until the fall planting, unless they are a silverskin variety. I would just peel, chop, and freeze them in ziplock bags, and enjoy them in cooking.

    TomNJ

  • spiced_ham
    13 years ago

    You can plant them and then use the green tops and also the bottoms during the growing seaason. You don't have to peel the individual cloves until the plant gets near maturity and the "skins" start to toughen up. I do this with early spring grocery store cloves that start to sprout. They get planted into the little bed reserved for growing green onions.

  • mayberrygardener
    13 years ago

    Don't feel like an idiot, I did the same thing last year, and planted them anyway--just for yucks. Then I asked around, and this is what I was told: If it's a softneck variety, you can plant it in early spring and harvest in fall.

    Unfortunately, my bulbs were not the softneck variety, however, the did make some little bulbs that we enjoyed--and with temps not below 25 until Christmastime, we waited until then to dig most of them, but I don't think that helped much, since the foliage had long-since died down. In fact, probably rotted a few. Good luck!

  • jonas302
    13 years ago

    Well you could eat them or as said plant and eat the tops like a green onion and leave the bottoms in if they don't amount to much leave them to grow for next year

  • pippimac
    13 years ago

    I went away at harvest time (Southern hemisphere...) and my large garlic crop busted out of its wrappers.
    I chucked it all in hot water, rubbed off the dirt and any loose skins, let it dry, then food-processed it relatively finely. Mixed quite a bit of vege oil through, poured shallow batches into large containers, froze. Tipped out garlic/oil slab onto board (you might need to run container under hot tap) and cut into portion-sized cubes. Tipped all into LIDDED containers in freezer. Voila, a year's supply of prepared garlic. Proud of myself, I was!

  • heirloomjunkie
    13 years ago

    I feel your pain, dowbright! Las year I bought two different kinds of onions sets, as well as a bunch of garlic sets. I had no idea they had to be planted in fall. So I ended up with a ton of "undercooked" onions, and the tinest little garlic cloves I have ever seen. Lesson learned!

    Kim

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