Soil v Timing v Rotation for Garlic

18 years ago

I planted my first section of garlic today and am looking ahead with some concern. Yesterday I ran into a local farmer at our local farmer's market (what are the odds of that?!), and our conversation soon turned to garlic. He had lots of fantastic advice, but it was his comments on when to plant that got me thinking the hardest. He said I should be planting now, and should get all my stock in before October 1st: it makes a very significant difference in size. That conicided with some of the comments in GL's thread, and so I bumped my schedule up a month.

Yesterday, I ripped out half of one less-than-happy tomato bed, turned in three barrows of aged horse manure, and popped some bulbs. Got this first batch in the ground today. I will tear out the rest of this tomato bed by the end of the week, and fill this bed next weekend. So far so good.

My problem is that the other two beds I had slated for garlic are currently occupied by hot peppers. I am partial to peppers, and do not want to pull those until frost is imminent, which would have coincided with my original garlic calendar.

I have another tomato bed I could use, but the soil in there is lousy. It basically a mixture of a heavy clay soil with aged horse manure. As I dug through one end of it today, it was not mixed enough, and had clumps of clay-like manure. I thought the worms would have done a better job. The tomatoes had grown well enough (apart from late blight), and the basil grew great, but it does not look like a good home for garlic. My other option is to put garlic back in a bed that housed garlic and onions this year.

So, do I:

a) Wait until late October when my pepper beds free up around a frost.

b) Ditch those peppers earlier? (if so, when? The are just starting to come into their own with ripe peppers, and have plenty of blossoms left.)

c) Try and fix the soil in the clay-tomato bed? (What amendments should I use, and how do I proceed?)

d) Plant garlic back in the allium bed, and plan out my rotation better next year?

Thanks...

-John

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Comments (5)

username_5
18 years ago
Why not plant in the pepper bed in a month or so? Then you have your own experiment as to whether the sept planting really does make larger bulbs. Not scientific, but fun nonetheless.
UncleJohn
Original Author
18 years ago
In many cases there will be different varieties going into the various beds, but there will be some control varieties which I will plant in both. The raised pepper beds really do have my best soil.
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username_5
18 years ago
hmmm, well perhaps you could plant the cloves around the peppers? Have you tried rotating garlic before? I am thinking your garlic won't be ready until August next year and you will have wanted your peppers and maters in well before then.

Otherwise just mix in a lot of compost in the other bed (the clay/manure one) and plant there. My garlic bed is basically clay with tons of compost mixed in and my garlic does fine.
gardenlad
18 years ago
I'd choose A and D Uncle John.

Planting in September vs October should have no significant effects on either bulb size nor maturation date. All you might get is longer leaves on fall-sprouted garlic.

Why are you concerned about rotation? Unless you deplete the soil of nutrients without replacing them, or suffer from a major pest or disease infestation (rare, with garlic), there is no reason whatsoever to rotate alliums. Or, frankly, any other garden veggie.
UncleJohn
Original Author
18 years ago
I was in the process of being convinced that an extra month of root growth in the fall would yield 20% larger bulbs next July. Some posts in GarlicLady's poll thread were very persuasive, and then talking with the farmer mentioned above cinched it. He really knows his stuff for growing garlic in my neck of the woods.

It looks like I will get a chance to test it out as I have planted about half of my intended stock of several varieties in half the bed I currently have available. The two pepper beds have very similar soil and positioning, so that would make the test particularly valid. I may take your advice and plant a few in my allium bed as well.

My reasoning for rotating is two-fold. The primary rationale is to rotate my other crops which are more succeptible to wilts and other soil diseases, particularly my beloved peppers, and the banes of my garden: tomatoes (my tomatoes seem to attract every known pest and disease Â this year I had hornworm, colorado potato beetle, blossom end rot, late blight and perhaps either fusarium wild and or verticulum wilt). The other reason is that my new buddy farmer advised me that penicillium mold is a real concern here, and that I should rotate my garlic on a 4-5 year basis (he said that if I got penicillium in my bed it would be unuseable for garlic for as long as ten years).

With all that said, I was/am concidering planting onions in this year's allium bed again next year. I eat copious (even ridiculous) amounts of onion, but they are a much more expendable component of my garden than garlic or peppers (the king and queen of my domain). So... I may take garden lad's suggestion and plant a few varieties in the unoccupied allium bed. If nothing else, I will plant bulbils there.