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Fri, Jun 22, 12 at 22:44
| are you able to grow garlic in florida? if so, what time of year can you grow it? and where can you get seeds , i heard u can just go to your local market and get regular produce garlic and plant the cloves. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Chuckie124 Garlic is a cool season crop, it only gets planted when the weather cools down. Silvia |
Here is a link that might be useful: garlic
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- Posted by westhamutd 9a (My Page) on Sat, Jun 23, 12 at 9:25
| Hi,like Silvia said,you want to plant the cloves later in the Year.I usually plant my garlic patch about October & can usually harvest the bulbs about May.I just buy about 10 or so loose bulbs from Publix & break the individual cloves apart.Then I plant them about 2" deep & about 4-6" apart.I've found the store bought cloves don't need a chill period before planting(I think they are kept refigerated during transit & probably while in storage) & they sprout within days of being planted.The bulb size seems to be affected by the winter temperatures-this season the bulbs were smaller than last season,but still excellent flavor & keep very well.Best of luck |
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- Posted by chuckie124 none (My Page) on Sat, Jun 23, 12 at 12:13
| thanks to both of you, thats very helpful and i definatly will do that in october:) |
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| I had some garlic in the fridge that started sprouting in Jan, so i pulled the cloves apart and planted them. I harvested all the little bulbs one by one as needed probably end of april...because I didn't have any in the fridge. I guess some little roots were left in the ground because they are growing back! I am not sure what makes them bulb up...cold weather or short days or what...but they are growing in an area that gets a bit of morning dappled sunlight. |
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| Silvia's link got me going and I have now read plenty about garlic. The garlic clove sets out to make roots when it is first planted. Once it has a strong root system going for it, and temperatures start to rise in late winter, it starts forming new cloves. The garlic's relative, the onion is day length moderated. It stops growing leaves and forms a single bulb when the days get long enough. The bigger the plant before bulbing, the bigger the bulb. Garlic is temperature moderated and forms cloves until the hot weather starts. The longer the plant has between root formation and bolt, the more and larger the cloves in the head. Once the temperature trigger has been reached, the garlic has the plant version of sex and stops work on the cloves. Being way South, we need garlic varieties that are adapted to our heat. That means soft necked varieties, artichokes and creoles. Commercial garlic production is mostly soft necked, so we get away with starting plants from store heads. Tina's plants probably never would have produced much of a head. they were planted too late. We need to plant in the fall after the temperatures have moderated. That would probably be September for zone 9. The sooner the better for large heads. Further South would mean later planting and fewer varieties able to tolerate the early heat. Some of the creoles have Caribbean names because they originated there. Those should even work in the keys. This, of course, is all my uneducated understanding of how garlic works. I ordered a warm winter assortment from Forever Yong Farms rather than selecting individual varieties. Larry |
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| Larry, it is nice to know that you are doing homework for all of us,lol. And after you trial them, let us know about how well they do for you and varieties. All I can tell you is that if I had my pick between the store varieties and the ones that are specialty, you know what I will choose just based on flavor, not cost or easy to get.:) I tried the red creole and ichilinium red and they were great, but while in Monticello I got some other varieties not for our weather and they were fantastic! you could really tell the difference more so like a homegrown or store bought tomato. You did well choosing the warm winter varieties... Silvia |
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| I always tuck cloves of garlic in my raised beds among the greens. Supposedly they help keep aphids away. It may just be an old wives tale, but since I've been doing it, the only bed that got aphids was the one that didn't have any garlic. I don't dig up the bulbs, but I do cut the garlic greens and use them in salads and such. |
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| Fwiw, I planted a few cloves in April a couple years back when I didn't know any better.... They sprouted and after several months I got curious and dug them up to find several small cloves down there. So i dont think the rules are hard and fast. It was a bear to wash the dirt off and wasn't worth the effort... I did eat a few as garlic greens and found them to be good. That was worth the effort (minimal.) |
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