Just for fun I thought I would post an earlier photo of the same beds. This photo was taken on April 25 and was posted previously in the GW Allium forum.

Again, if interested click on the photo to see larger photo with comments.

This is a close up photo of the center bed in above photo:

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Very nice!

I have a small garden, with the garlic growing this year where the peas were last year. I grow Martin's Heriloom, Russian Giant, and Asian Tempest. Like you, I always plant some bulbils every fall, but many of the one-year-olds get used as garlic because the big rounds are so easy to peel. (The biggest one-year-olds get replanted, of course.)

What do you put in after your garlic harvest? I found a short-season garbanzo bean that matures after the garlic harvest even in my short mountain-side summer. Then I can replant garlic in the same bed, or rotate something else in.

Catherine

I have other garden space where I plant late season stuff like lettuce, radishes, spinach, etc. After the garlic harvest I let that area lie fallow (I may switch to planting a green manure cover crop). In fall I till in fertilizer, compost, and the old straw in preparation for planting. I have been doing a three year rotation of garlic, garlic, other. I will be changing this to a two year on-off rotation once more land is put to the plow.

Catherine, I am curious which of your varieties' bulbils grow into sizable rounds after one season? What size do they get to? My German Brown bulbils make wonderful tasting green garlic rounds that look like green onions. But by the end of the season they have matured into miniature cloved bulbs that are about the size of the store-bought stuff in the little two-packs. The cloves from these little bulbs are wonderful to use in cooking as well. These little first-year plants from bulbils even shoot up miniature scapes and produce a miniature bulbil cluster of their own. The "baby" scapes are very delicious and more tender than the scapes from the full size plants. I have one customer that takes all the baby scapes I can offer the day I cut them off. I should have around 500 for her this year. I may start planting thousands of bulbils simply to harvest the baby scapes, if I find there is a market for them.

Bulbils from other varieties I have planted produce pea- to marble-size rounds the first year and small cloved bulbs the second year. Is that the size rounds of which you are speaking?

A photo from last year containing some first-year cloved bulbs (upper left) of German Brown from planted bulbils (click to see larger with comments):

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-Tom

I was caught by surprise this morning. I went out to check the garlic because we had another hail storm yesterday. Just like that I found scapes developing on several varieties including the German Browns and the German Browns from planted bulbils. BTW the garlic crop is o.k. - luckily only slight damage from the pea-size hail (some bent leaves, torn leaves, punctures). Severe weather is forecast for tomorrow - sure is a tough growing season this year.

Here is a June 16 photo of a garlic plant with a scape developing (click to see larger with comments):

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The Russian Giant produces the largest rounds at the end of one year. Martin's Heirloom sometimes produced a round, but sometimes divides into small cloves. Asian Tempest seems to always divide.

Our weather has been brutal this spring. The good news is we haven't had any hail. The bad news is the winds that should have died down a month and a half ago are still blowing, we haven't had measurable rain in a month, and we've had less than 1 inch of precipitation since the beginning of the year.

Thanks for the info Catherine. I find the rounds very interesting but I am always on the lookout for varieties whose planted bulbils divide the first year and also grow well in my climate - they are my priority interest for some marketing ideas I want to pursue.

I did some checking on your Asian Tempest. Sounds like a very good variety but found conflicting info as to whether it is an Asiatic or an Artichoke hardneck. I have never grown Asiatics so I do not know how well they would do here. I will have to do some more research...

From what I have read in the GW forums and seen on the evening news it appears that many people in all zones are having an off growing season this year.

-Tom