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olddaddy_gw

Garlic Source

olddaddy
11 years ago

I am gardening in Central Florida near Haines City where I-4 and Hwy 27 cross. I'm looking for a source for garlic I can grow. Anything that would grow here would be great.

Comments (7)

  • tommyplyer
    11 years ago

    I get mine from Walmart produce department and put them in the refrigerator for a few days and they seem to grow quite well Tommy

  • thetradition
    11 years ago

    Like many things, only certain varieties are suitable for Florida's climate. Fortunately, grocery store bulbs are likely to be a suitable variety as they are usually softneck varieties (e.g., California Eary; California Late). Hardneck varieties aren't supposed to work south of zone 8. So, like the previous poster said, try planting a clove from the grocery store and see what happens!

  • L_in_FL
    11 years ago

    I have planted grocery store garlic in past years and had it do quite well, with no disease problems. This year I planted some garlic I bought at Sam's on Dec. 16 - most of it was up as of yesterday. I didn't refrigerate the garlic at all first - up here in the Panhandle we get enough chill to wake them up. This is the first time I have grown garlic in several years, so I will have to wait for summer to see what the harvest is like.

    I have about two dozen of the biggest cloves in a dedicated bed where they will be pampered and hopefully make nice heads for storage use. I planted about that many more mid-sized cloves tucked around the edges of some beds, where they won't get quite as pampered. They may not make heads, or they may only make small ones. But even if they don't make heads, they can be harvested as desired for greens and rounds. (The small inner cloves I took back to the kitchen to use.)

    Both the grocery store garlic and the Sam's garlic were unnamed softneck varieties with a mild flavor, nothing special. But with my kids, mild garlics work best anyway.

  • beachlily z9a
    11 years ago

    I purchased 8 big heads of Calif. garlic at Whole Foods plus some really big shallots. Three of the shallots got planted this afternoon and 5 garlic cloves will be planted tomorrow.

    This fall I ordered some garlic from Gourmet Garlic Gardens because they had garlic varieties specifically for the deep south including FL. Those were planted in Nov. and are growing like gangbusters! I planted them in my daylily boxes. It was sacrilege to use daylily spaces for garlic but the struggle should be worth it. Also shared varieties with a friend in North FL who has weather way different than mine. I haven't had a freeze in 10 yr. Looking forward to what happens with garlic--the daylilies will begin blooming early Apr.

  • tommyplyer
    11 years ago

    this is some of my garlic from Walmart I put it in some water it couldn't wait to grow. good luck with yours

  • TampaBull
    11 years ago

    A few weeks ago, I planted some extra garlic i got from the store that had sprouted.

    2 days ago, I found some dried up shriveled garlic that had fallen to a back corner of my fridge (probably have been there for months.) I decided, why not, and put them in a cup of water outside, this morning, I found that they had started to grow roots! So I planted them as well.

    Does anyone here know when is the latest that garlic can be planted?
    I'm in the Tampa area.

  • L_in_FL
    11 years ago

    IFAS says to plant garlic from September to February in Florida. (I have always planted in November or December.)