Did you scroll down a bit and catch the garlic post? There's some suggestions there.
Barb

Hi,
Somewhere I read to just start with the biggest cloves from any garlic bulb you like, and plant them so the tip is about an inch deep. They said the bigger cloves will grow into bigger bulbs. So that's what I've done; planted about 10 nice size cloves the last week or so of September. The garlic came from Safeway... nothing fancy.

generator, I've posted a link below for Filaree Farms. They have a great website with lots of great garlic info. We garden at 7,000 feet in the rockies, short summers. Personally I prefer the hardneck strains of garlic, but we have some softnecks that do fine, including some that came from supermarket garlic. Avoid Asiatic and Turban garlics and you should be fine. Good luck

Here is a link that might be useful: Filaree Farm Garlic

Thanks for the help everyone. I now have some good ideas of the types of garlic I should get. The onions I got are egyptian walking onions which should come back every year as long as I don't eat them all. Does anybody grow their garlic as a perennial? It would be interesting to me (as well as saving money and time, I think anyway) to leave some in the ground and not have to replant every fall. I found this article on doing that. Any ideas, pros and cons?

Here is a link that might be useful: Garlic You Only Plant Once

generator_00, I read this article, but it seems like some information is missing. If the small ones are left, then most likely they would become the large ones the next year, so they would be harvested, thereby leaving no garlic to harvest the year after. So how does it propagate itself? He removes the seed heads, so it's not by seed.

milehighgirl, you're right about what the article said. I wonder if it meant to say cut the flowers off the biggest plants which hopefully would be the oldest plants and not just the smallest? Then the younger plants would supply the seed but not develop cloves? I am just guessing I really don't know anything about garlic. Another scenario would be the garlic is propagating through the roots, which I don't know if it does.

Follow this link to what I think is happening. If you cut the seed buds off the biggest plants they will produce your harvest-able garlic bulbs. Leaving the seed buds on the smaller plants will cause them to reseed with the bulblets that develop. You need a garlic that produces bulblets and you need to be patient as it takes 2 years. I don't know for sure but I'm gonna get me some garlic and try it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Q: Can I propagate garlic from small cloves?

generator_00, I think the only way to do this would be to pick the small cloves and divide them and re-plant them when the others are harvested. Basically it would be just planting your cloves a few months early. This seems to fly in the face of everything else I've read that says you don't want to plant it too early because they will begin to grow then.

Two summers ago in July when I harvest garlic, I had a few dozen heads left from the year before, that were about to die off. So I broke them apart and planted the cloves very closely, and they survived, most of them forming 'rounds' or large-marble-sized, undivided bulbs. I pulled these out and replanted them in Oct, treating them as normal planting cloves - 4" deep, 6" apart, along with the regular planting.

They really didn't do well. Most of the heads were mis-shaped, small, and not really worth the effort.

I've also tried to do those little tiny ones from the scape flower. Eh ...... that was a waste of time.

Best to stick with the recommended practices, I conclude.

You need to re-plant cloves every year. Leaving heads in the ground simply results in small, even tiny cloves.

I was very satisfied with the cold-hardiness of the hardneck 'Siberian' last year and re-planted it this year as well. You have to like strong garlic, though.

Dan

generator: Thanks for the link to the article. I found it interesting, as I am really interested in growing as many perennials as possible for all the reasons mentioned in the article. Two quick things: "elephant garlic" is not garlic, but a segmented leek. So info pertaining to elephant garlic may not be relevant. Second thing: I got the impression the reporter didn't know much about growing garlic.

Also The 80 year old guy spent years developing this technique. I don't know about you, but I don't have multiple years to play with new techniques poorly described by uninformed journalists. A visit with the old guy would probably clear up a lot of the confusion. Maybe.

When we've left garlic bulbs in the ground (by mistake) they do grow the following year. But the cloves are tiny as each clove tries to produce a new bulb. If you don't care how big your cloves are, no problem. We grow for market, and people love BIG things. Really LOVE BIG THINGS. So I think we'll probably continue to grow garlic as an annual.

Thanks for all the advice everyone. Not what I was hoping to hear but good to know none the less. I bought some elephant garlic and tried it but I don't care for it as much as regular garlic so I won't be planting any of it. I guess I'll just try a few of the hardneck garlics people have mentioned and see what they grow like here. If I forget to harvest a few or seed a few bulbils along the way I don't figure I'm out too much. Anyway I now know a lot more about garlic than I did a week ago.

I gave a parent at school a couple heads for their garden and was talking with them this past week, and he said the squirrels dug up all the cloves he planted, but didn't eat a single one (!).

But at least it gave us an opportunity to talk about garlic, and he does it a little differently than I do, but gets good results. Which is one of the reasons why gardening is so much fun and stimulating, if'n you ask me.

Dan

Elephant garlic makes small offsets around the base of the bulb (like leeks do), as well as the cloves inside the head. Most likely this guy is pulling up the heads and leaving the offsets. Normal garlic does not do this, so it probably would not work for regular garlic.

Hey thanks for the additional information promethean spark. I was able to google this picture using your info.

Here is a link that might be useful:

For those growing garlic in the Rocky Mt region, it is important to grow cold-hardy garlic.

My success is spotty with vars that are not labeled cold-hardy or 'northern'. Some do well, some don't.

I just went outside and looked at my 'California Early' after this cold snap and they are none too pleased, and I have them up against the south wall of the house where the ground rarely freezes.

Dan

Dan I know I'm some warmer than many of you. We had two morings of zero this week. But what I've found here it is important to mulch. I checked the soil under my mulch( 2 inches of leaves and 3-4 inches for grass clippings) and it never froze during this cold spell. And my garlic is fine. Most of the garlic I grow came from WI or a Pueblo grower originally. So choosing cold hardy varieties and then mulching well allows great results here. Jay