a stop by the perennial bed on a tour of the backyard told me that the elephant garlic was ready to harvest (top photo ) so i went downstairs and got the spading fork and popped them up (photo number two)...three nice sized bulbs and thirteen smaller cloves growing off the roots to replant for next season (photo three)...three plants last season produced only three cloves to plant for this year...the current season was far more productive and the only difference i can come up with beyond the fact that i grew it on campus last year and did it at home this, is that the plants on campus were in full sun and the perennial bed on the south side of the house is n partial shade during the day...perhaps they don't particularly care for full sun...with thirteen cloves to plant this autumn i believe some will receive full sun and some will be partially shaded...that experiment may provide some answers...then again perhaps not...won't know for a year...i am learning patience in all this...or maybe it is just a way to get away from the rest of life's little turmoils...either way.
hey found your site when googling russian garlic.
ReplyDeleteHow did you go?
I just planted some but its mid summer...
now i'm worried. should i wait til autumn?
i plant my elephant garlic in the autumn ( thirteen lucky cloves this year. up from nine last year. my garlic plants reproduced better this past season and i am only replanting way my plants produce in the way of seed cloves) it is up by march and harvests in july. large mild cloves. i can't say what will happen for sure, but i believe cold in a necessary part of the garlic's growth process ( lots of seeds need cold to break dormancy...spring crops like spinach, arugula, beets, turnips...even teosinte needs a few cycles of frost to get started...i always plant those seeds in march) you may not see it emerge until next spring. i am not a garlic expert however, i can only speak empirically about elephant garlic and that is definitely a fall planter that overwinters. best of luck...hope your garlic prospers.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this article. I just pulled up my elephant garlic and found the weird small cloves growing outside of the bulb. I had no idea what they were!
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