Can I plant garlic/onions I buy at the grocery store?

What kind of soil do alliums like?

What's the difference between softneck and hardneck garlic and which type does best where?

What's the difference between long-day and short-day onions?

My onion / garlic tops are falling over ... what do I do?

How do I cure and store alliums?

Some more questions for consideration--most of these questions posed with garlic in mind:

1) When do I plant, when do I harvest?

2) How deep do I plant and what spacing?

3) How do I harvest?

4) What do I do with them once they are out of the ground?

5) How long will they store and where do I store them?

How important is mulching and what do I use for mulch?

When do i cut the scapes off my garlic?

How about the basic "What do I plant" for onions (seed, plants, sets), garlic (clove size from plant size), shallots, etc. for the best results?

Pretty good list so far! Keep 'em coming!

Some of these will be stand alone, and some will be covered as part of answers to broader questions!

I like makalu's suggestion of hardneck vs softneck and what zones for each, and I would like to know why they do better in differing areas.

thanks for doing this,

~T

how about instructions on fertilizing (when, with what) and watering (how much, when to stop).

tom

Is planting depth from the bottom or top of the clove/bulb?

how long will it take to get mature plants from seeds? for edible alliums and for ornamental alliums?

Given the broad range of Alliums, I think that 6-8 sounds like a very small number of questions.

In adition to general questions there should be at least 6-8 specifically for garlic
1) hardnecks vs softnecks
2) planting stock selection and preparation (bulb size, clove size, breaking apart bulbs without bruising, washing in baking soda solution or alcohol (or not), etc)
3) how to plant (when, how deep, spacing, fertilizing, mulching, etc)
4) if/when/how when to cut scapes (and what to do with them - yum!)
5) when/how to harvest and cure
6) favorite garlics for various zones/climates
7) storage
8) multi-year strategies (rotation, bed development, building stocks from purchased bulbs)
9) pests

Onions:
1) long day vs short
2) starting onions (including starting seeds, buying sets, and buying started plants)
3) transplanting out (when, spacing)
4) green/bunching onions
5) maintaining (feeding, mulching or not)
6) when/how to harvest
7) storage

Shallots - there are surely some specifics here, but I don't know them.

Flowering Alliums - likewise there must be some faqs for this subset

Another point for the FAQs: growing garlic from bulbils rather than cloves.

What is Elephant Garlic?
When do you cut scapes and can they be eaten?
And what are like top sets?

Q: How can I get my onions to grow large? I planted sets in early spring and the onions were good, but much smaller than the supermarket onions.

I like Uncle John's Q's. Also, what are the yields?

Per Nelz's instruction in the initial post of this thread, I am 'voting' for the following questions, which I selected from several of the posts above and slightly edited. A decision will have to be made about whether to have combined or separate questions for onions and garlic.

What are alliums?

When do I plant alliums?

How is the planting bed prepared for alliums?

How deep do I plant and at what spacing?

What care (watering, fertilizing, etc.) is needed during growing?

When and how do I harvest and store alliums?

What's the difference between softneck and hardneck garlic?

What's the difference between long-day and short-day onions?

My onion/garlic tops are falling over ... what do I do?

Can I plant onions/garlic I buy at the grocery store?

Can I save seeds or bulbs for planting next year?

Jim

As a newbie so new I'm still trying to figure out whether and which alliums to plant:

What are some good starter varieties (for my location)? (the answer, of course, distinguishing between climates) You know, a good basic sampler, some onions, some garlics, some chives, some shallots, some whatever.

How much should I plant? (plant vs. yield for various alliums)

Sets, seeds, or transplants?

Of course, hardneck vs. softneck (see, I have been reading through the forum)

Really, really basic stuff.

Can't wait till they're posted. I'm new at gardening in general, not just alliums. God bless GardenWeb.

You make a good point. The FAQs should address basics -- the newbie questions. Nuances and esoteric questions don't belong there. They are for the threads.

Remember what FAQs are, *frequently* asked questions. Their purpose is to avoid large amounts of redundancy in the threads, not to provide a comprehensive reference to alliums.

Jim

I have only been participating in this board since the beginning of the year, and there are well over a dozen questions that have each been repeated more than once in that time. More information is not a vice.

Take it away, Nelz!

Jim

Here's one more:

When do I order garlic and how do I store it until I plant it?

This FAQ is going to be great....

~Thalia

I've seen this question more than once and I have never seen an answer;

What alliums can we grow in the hot, humid south east?
Specifically, are there any of the large 'ornamental' alliums that will thrive here?

Thanks for putting this together.

RE:
Allium FAQs Progress & 1 Suggested Question

Dear Nelz & extended gardening family,

I am a gardening newbie and would like to get some onion sets planted in mid-March or so.

1. I was wondering how close you and the group are to completing the Allium FAQs.

I do have one question to add to the suggested list. Hopefully, some kind soul will answer it.

2. Are there any edible ornamental onions that reproduce by generating additional bulbettes? If not, are there any edible ornamental onions that one could reasonably eat in a survival situation that do not taste too bad?

Thank you in advance for your kind answer to these questions.

Sincerely,

Ken

OneEagleOne

Reference:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/allium/msg072241487269.html

Q. what would happen if i plant different varieties next to each other.
A. it will have no effect on them.

Q. will garlic cross pollinate.
A. No.

The question I came to this forum searching for the answer. I know the date I need to transplant the onions for my area.
So ... How far in advance do I need to start the seeds before my transplant date ?

Can someone post the link for the FAQ?
I can't find it

TIA

Another question I came here looking for ...
definitions of onion terms ... what is a seed, seedling, set, bulb, bunch, transplant, scapes, other words I don't know ?

I never did find any onion seeds last year (only found seeds for what I call scallions or green onions - White Lisbon Bunching). Our local farm supply store got in bushel baskets of what looks like little miniature onions about the size of the first joint of my thumb that we could buy by the pound. I don't think they had the variety name on them, just red, yellow, and white. I am intermediate day area, so I assume they got the right ones in for our area. A few of them had shoots of green already growing from them about 1-2" long, but the guy there said not to get those. Get the ones with no green yet. I bought about 30. I am trying to do a search of how to plant them, but I don't even know what they are called. So more suggested questions ... How, when, how deep do I plant & care for each of the ways of planting onions defined above ? Water ? Fertilize ? Soak seeds ? I think I read something about cutting the tops back periodically ? When & how to harvest ? Really really really newbie questions for the FAQs.

I guess the same kind of questions for garlic though I am many months off from growing that yet.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/allium/msg071138544149.html
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/allium/msg011153119044.html
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/allium/msg0310064812977.html

Allium newbie/failure here. Questions:

What varieties (if any) of garlic can I grow in a small garden with no shade and hellish summer temperatures?

What's the best way to store garlic (even if I'm reduced to buying it at the supermarket)?

Can I safely make "garlic oil" by putting garlic cloves in olive oil? (I read somewhere that it's not safe??)

Can/should garlic ever be refrigerated?

We LOVE garlic and I've tried more than once (admittedly with grocery store garlic) to grow it with 0% success, other than green tops. Looking forward to a garlic FAQ!

mgpaquin, the answer to your first questin is:
IT IS THE WRONG TIME TO START GROWING GARLICS IN SAVANAH, GA.
I live further north, around Atlanta. Here we plant garlics in October. They grow a little bit and overwinter
and as of March they resume growing and bulbing.
By June they will be ready for harvest, before the heat waves hit hard.