I am so glad to come aross this...thank you for posting the information. My first year at being more serious on garlic plant and harvesting. We had a drought this summer and I lost almost all except for Italian Purple easy peel, Madrid (only a few)and Susan D. (maybe 4 cloves)This year I plant to learn more about the different varieties and how/when to harvest.

That was a great write up Tom. Thanks for taking the time to share!

TomNJ

I agree, He gave me some excellent advice. Thanks for your knowledge Tom!

Thanks. Happy to help.

No exaggeration - I have tens of thousands of properly cured bulbils and first-year rounds from up to 13 garlic varieties available for trade starting in mid September. If anyone wants to see a photo of my "seed" stock I will certainly post some pics if requested to do so (probably on a new thread). What is available is now listed on my personal trade page. If anyone wants to experiment with these little critters then contact me in September sometime.

Again, please note that I am much too busy right now to even consider doing trades - you can send me an email now if you want to but I may not reply for a couple of weeks.

-Tom

Here is a link that might be useful: Varieties of bulbils and rounds I have available.

I grew the asiatic variety Asian Tempest this year and it formed big pea sized bulbils. This variety is nice because keeping the scapes on to grow bulbils does not make the bulbs appreciably smaller. I plan to plant the bulbils pretty close together, then them in the spring (eat the thinnings as garlic greens, very tasty) and let the remainder grow into the sumnmer, when I harvest and cure them with the other garlic, to replant in a fresh bed that fall (I always rotate m planting- never plant garlic in the same bed 2 years running, to minimize disease etc). By the second or third year I should have full size garlic bulbs, and since they bulbils were not originally grown in soil, planting bulbils is a way to obtain a disease-free, vigorous crop inexpensively.

WiscoScott, the principle disease of garlic is yellows, and there was a serious outbreak in MN this year, as you may have read. By growing on the bulbils, you are effectively vegetatively reproducing the same garlic as in the basal bulb, diseases and all. The only way to produce a disease / virus free version is by producing it from true seed. The viruses cannot be transmitted by seed. There was a very good discussion on this forum a while back on how to produce true garlic seed, not bulbils.

Steve

how long will a bulbil still be plantable after being dried out?

During the first year, how big will the new plants get? Mine are hardneck. Can I plant them now (@ Aug 1) in seed starting trays and leave them all winter in my heated and air conditioned shop? How close together if I plant them in a large flat?
This is my first year and my garlic crop turned out great. I would like to continue with this variety (I don't know the name, I got them from a local gardener). I will plant some of the cloves from my first harvest but I am willing to invest the time to start some from bulbils,

If you scroll up and read the second post, it comprehensively explains about growing bulbils. It wouldn't be advisable planting them in flats, there won't be enough depth for the roots to grow.
Flats would also dry out too quickly, bulbils are very sensitive to lack of water and their growth will be checked if allowed to dry out too quickly. However, if you prefer to grow them in a container, ideally, allow at least 6" depth.
I've had success in both containers and the open ground. The bulbils are useful sprinkled between rows of different varieties as dividers:)
If you take a look around these sites, it may help you to identify the group that your hardneck belongs to -
http://www.filareefarm.com/ps.html
http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/overview.htm
This is a great blog with photos about growing bulbils
http://goingtoseed.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/garlic-bulbil-harvest/
In the comments, there's a link to Snakeroot farm which explains about the effect of planting on times whether you get rounds or minature bulbs. I prefer rounds as they tend to yield larger, almost normal sized bulbs when you replant them the following year. The exception would be the rounds from porcelains which yields bulbs about 1 - 1 1/2" diameter.

This post was edited by zqnmegan on Sun, Jul 28, 13 at 16:42

I would suggest keeping the scape on the stem until the harvest time and then cut it and keep it in water, outside in shade/ indirect light so the bulbils are fully developed. Then you can cure them and plant them like garlic cloves.

This was a very wet year and I think that is why I have this problem. In breaking my garlic cloves apart to prepare for planting, many of them had no skin(wrapper) on the side where they were joined to the next clove. I was very careful separating them. So I'm not sure about planting the ones not fully wrapped. Can I still plant them and if not, how can I preserve them so I don't lose almost half my crop. Very upsetting I must say. Thank you for any advise.

I haven't had this happen yet, but so long as they're not moldy you should plant them. They very likely won't preserve very well so planting seems like the best solution. The wrapper goes away pretty quickly under the ground anyway, so they should be ok.

I would guess that you might have picked them too early before the skins were fully developed but someone with more experience would have to say for sure.

hello sandrakassa, do you still have any bulbs/cloves that you could post a photo of? If the bulbs had outer wrappers and it was the individual cloves that were missing skins, it could have been double cloves that you were finding. They should be fine to plant.