Might do you some good if you had a disease problem with first the baking soda and then the alcohol, but mine does fine being planted dry and unprotected then watering the hell out of them! No disease problems yet. Instead of an overnight soak, they get a five day soak in freshly composted soil. Maybe it's the variety of garlic that resists?
Sounds like snake oil to me.
hortster

Got to admit I coughed up a laugh when I read the title of this thread on the main page.

I am 65 miles north of NYC, bordering zone 5 and 6, in Putnam County, NY.

I keep my harvested garlic from this year cool, and in a dark place, until I get a good hard frost. Then I break up the cloves (I save the biggest heads to produce more big heads) and plant them 4 inches deep in loose soil and raised mounds, 6 inches from each other in a vertical line, and 14 inches between rows. I cover them with 5-6 inches of mulch which consists of 50% grass clippings and 50% leaves chopped up in my mulching mower.

I pay little attention to hard opinions on when to plant. Every year is different. If there are mosquitoes still flying around, like right now, I ain't plantin, no matter what the calendar says.

I pay NO attention to gimmicks. Soaking my heads? Uh, no.

With respect to "horster", I do not water. At all. No need. Mother nature does what she does. The garlic still pops up, and is often the first sign of spring poking through a layer of snow.

There is no easier crop to produce than garlic. Plant, mulch heavily, weed a little in spring/early summer, and then ENJOY! Almost a zero attention, zero effort crop.

I never had and have nearly 100% "germination" with my garlic. I plant early and give them a good watering in if they are in a bed that was left fallow all summer and not so much water if they are in an intensively used bed.

Don't have disease problems despite planting in the same soil year after year (going on 14 years.)

Hey, largemouth, truly like your attitude!
I plant my garlic in a completely raised garden, well drained; triple rows 6" apart and cloves 6" apart. To each their own! No winter mulch.
As to watering, you ain't lived in southcentral KS. I just want to ensure that they poke their heads up for a while before winter - get bigger bulbs the next year if so. Some years are wet, most are dry. Agree - easy to grow but not as productive in powder dry soil.
Ain't no vampires around here!
hortster

By soaking in a solution of liquid seaweed and baking soda (some people use vinegar) overnight you can decrease the chance of fungi developing as well as the eggs of mites. Also, the liquid seaweed gives the clove a good boost (same as soaking seeds or flower bulbs before planting). The alcohol soak should be done for 3 to 4 minutes then planted soon after. This may be overkill but I hate to think about dealing with a fungus problem that can prevent you from planting in the same area for three or more years. I been doing this for several years and never had any problems. Also did mini research and evaluated cloves soaked vs cloves not soaked and the ones I did always seemed healthier than those I did not. Also received some bulbs from USDA and they suggested some type of preventative soaking before planting to decrease the potential of fungus or mites.

hortster & johnnp,
I bought from wegrowgarlic, but I did not soak.
If I get a good crop, I may never soak.
We will see.
I have 5 kinds of garlic.

I never soak, just poke them in the ground. Mine are about 6" tall now, not mulched. I mulch them in the spring lightly to keep weeds down. But the ground doesn't freeze very deep here and only for a day or 2 when it does freeze.

I don't like the idea of soaking them because my climate is so unpredictable. I soak them, I wake them up and they start growing, what if there is a severe freeze next? I let them sit in the soil and decide for themselves when they start growing, according to environmental signals.

Soak them? Ughhh! We don't even like the skin being off the clove when it is put into the ground, I couldn't imagine soaking them.

We break our garlic heads apart and plant immediately. No mulching for the winter.

For anyone who stumbles across this post, I would like to add a link showing why this soaking process is used.

Many home gardeners are selective about the sources they obtain their bulbs/seeds and do quite well without protection.

It is up to the gardener to decide to use a soak. The threat remains real. I am embarking upon my first adventure with garlic. I will be soaking to include the habit in my gardening techniques.

Happy gardening.

Golden Gate Gardener Lost Garden Crop

My old friends used to sell garlic in NY state under the name of Marjean. They had awesome beds of garlic. I can't get it to grow here.

Unless , you try to disinfect , there is no need to soak a garlic clove over night. Since garlic will not absorbe water during that short period of time.

But if you want to keep it moist longer, wrap it in toilet tissue and dip it in water then plant. I , sometimes, do this with gourds and pumpkin seeds.

It's amazing how few people who responded went to look at the reasons behind soaking. Soaking garlic does help treat problems in garlic... not because it needs the moisture (!???!) or to "wake them up" (garlic likes to be planted when it's cold and soaking them won't do anything to make them grow faster), but because it can help prevent fungal diseases and treat mites. It's not a gimmick, either- several Universities recommend this as a treatment for ridding garlic of fungal disease and mites. If you have no problems in your seed garlic (no spots, no rotting, no early drying-out), no need to soak. But if you're getting problems in storage of garlic or having a lot of plants with problems, it's not a bad idea to soak the garlic. We grow 2 acres now and are going to start soaking varieties that seem to have mites, which is a common problem in garlic.

I'd recommend you use old-fashioned sodium-free baking powder; i.e. potassium bicarbonate. No need to introduce sodium to your plant culture.

I do similar to Largemouth except no raised beds or mounds. I plant direct into freshly tilled soil. No watering in, No soaking. They will be fine. Soaking is a gimmick that is not necessary. It takes time, and separates you from your money!
I've have never soaked mine and have nearly 100% germination rate.. Every year.

UMASS recommends using a 9 part water 1 part bleach solution, soaking for one to two miniutes. We used this this last fall really good results so far. We also have a lot of fungus issues here in wet Oregon.

Here is a link that might be useful: jubilee produce

Soaking! Having trouble editing. I believe the nemesis in my East Bay N.Cal Earth boxes may not be the most common problem.

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/4195538/peeling-garlic-a-week-before-planting

I think I have root problems again.

Maybe basal rot

https://onvegetables.com/2012/07/24/fusarium-basal-plate-rot-of-onion-and-garlic/

I have not been adding water to the reservoir, and I have been keeping them out of the rain.

More close ups

NVM

They did much better in 5 gallon buckets with SIP inserts.

I plant in the soil, & I have never soaked the clove or any seeds of my plants.

I get 98% of my garlic & 95-100% of my seeds, even okra, which takes longer to sprout.

I don't soak cloves before planting. However, soaking is good a practice, for the reasons stated by Kristenmarie above - especially when starting with new stock. It is better to catch potential diseases or organisms proactively, before they are introduced into your soil. It may sound like a waste of time, but consider the benefit vs. risks... an extra hour or so, compared to the possibility of years of bad garlic from infected ground (or not growing any onions or garlic for several years).

I agree with Jonagold & wertach.

I never read about soaking anywhere but here.

I have Ruth Stout no dig & many other book & viewed many website & sellers of garlic.

I have planted garlic for over ten years, I have an heirloom Elephant garlic from N.C., that is at least 100 years old, never soaked it .

Anecdotal advice is good. For me, other kinds of advice are good too, since I've had to grow in containers, and have had both failures and successes. I'd like know I will be questioning again next year.

Four years ago, I got some great feedback on this thread.

https://www.chowhound.com/post/peeling-garlic-week-planting-1041941

Specifically;

"Glad to hear you got them back, but as for that fungus control advice, I have to say "hmm". While I've been growing plants one way or the other since I was a kid and have done a fair amount of (preferably technical) reading on plant diseases over the years, I'm certainly no "expert", but for whatever it's worth, honestly, it questionable to me, based on over-generalizations and to some extent, misunderstandings. Not harmful, but of questionable utility.

To sart with, seaweed extract is great stuff, but has no fungicidal properties, and for that matter doesn't provide much if iany sort of "energy boost" either. It has very little in the way of simple carb content, which is the only source of "energy", other than sunlight, that growing green plants can utilize. (And beside, "energyy" is the last thing plant propagation material like garlic cloves need, since they bulk of the clove exists "for that every purpose" (so to speak).. If fresh, seaweed extract does however have useful amounts of (both growth and rooting) plant hormones. and a fair slew of useful micronutrients.

As for the baking soda and rubbing alcohol, that's where I really start to wonder... Frankly, it sounds pretty dubious, but in this specific instance (with unsprouted garlic cloves), I don't think it'll hurt either, as long as you thoroughly rinse after the baking soda soak and don't let them soak in the alcohol for long. Large amounts of sodium are NOT something most plants even tolerate well, and while sodium bicarbonate does appear to have limited fungicidal properties, at least against some, particularly foliar, fungi but , one has to be very careful to balance the effective "dose" against the potential toxicity of the sodium, and it's certainly not something you'd want to ever water in to soil, rather than using it as a foliar spray in carefully controlled amounts to avoid an excess being taken up by plants' roots (in this case, of course, there aren't any roots to soak it up, which is why I don't think it'd be harmful). As for the alcohol. I really don't know anything about that as an antifungal agent. I've certainly never heard of it being particularly effective against fungi, nor widely used for that purpose (although it is a very common, if only moderately effective and potentially deleterious ingredient in homemade "bug spray"). it would certainly be harmful is allowed to soak long enough to really penetrate the cloves, and I'm really not sure just a few minutes will necessarily be effective against fungi, especially one that, at a brief glance, anyways, seems pretty tough like the one that causes white rot.

Seriously speaking, I think you'd be much better off searching ag extension websites, or maybe doing web searches using the specific word "fungicide" as well as the scientific name of the white rot fungus (Sclerotium cepivorum) for the most up-to-date, effective treatments and preventatives. If the answer really were as simple as baking soda and rubbing alcohol, I don't think the world's garlic growers would have an impending pandemic on their hands..."

Thanks Mike G!

Couldn't find any double blinded studies but her are some other opinions supporting some form of prs-soaking.

https://keeneorganics.com/garlic-fertilization-soak/

https://www.themarthablog.com/2017/11/planting-garlic-at-my-farm.html

https://www.garlicana.com/resources-links/growing-instructions/

https://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/planting-and-growing-the-garlic.html

https://www.groeat.com/soaking-garlic-before-planting

There are some nice ideas from Pam Dawling, author of Sustainable Market Farming, in a link entitled "Organic Growers School › P.-...PDF Growing Great Garlic - Organic Growers School" but its a PDF and I can't seem to link it.

This is part of it. Sustainable Market Farming

Among other things, It says "Many of us do nothing special with the cloves before planting, but if you have pest and disease problems, use pre-plant soaking treatments, usually done the night before planting. Some growers find they get better yields from treated cloves even if no problem was obvious."

I planted in 5 gallon buckets last season and they did much better. No rot, and leaves didn't die down until June.

Nanelle, glad to hear your garlic grew better.

I do soak my garlic, using a protocol similar to that recommended by Keene Garlic.

I decided to do it because 2 years ago I was so late in the year ordering seed garlic that I had to buy the Music and Inchelium Red on Ebay, and wasn't sure of its origin.

So I soaked the cloves overnight with seaweed and baking soda and a brief soak with food grade hydrogen peroxide before planting. Harvested fantastic garlic last July, and saved both for seed this year. Soaked them again last fall, along with some new varieties (German White, Georgian Fire, Chesnok red).

The Music is doing particularly well, it is already huge. Not sure if the garlic would grow as well if it hadn't been soaked. Guess I could do a comparison somtime.

I have twelve kinds of garlic in the Fall & never soaked it. 47 years I never soaked seeds of any kind, not even okra. We never planted indoors, before last frost, but if it works for you, do it.