Garlic in trouble?

Trotter

I was away for a few days and while I was gone, a monsoon and high winds hit the garden it seems.

My garlic was around 2ft tall, leaves still green and seemed to need another 3 or 4 weeks. (It was sewn in October).

However it seems to have been knocked over by the wind and rain. The outer layer on the base of the stem is gone or split and there seems to be individual 'stems' coming from the bulb.

Here's a photo.. Is there anything I can do or should I just leave them as they are for another month and hope for the best?



Thanks!

Trotter

Any ideas? Im tempted to dig them up in case they go bad in the ground.

dfbemt

Trotter wrote: »

Any ideas? Im tempted to dig them up in case they go bad in the ground.

Pull 1 up and see !

Sorry i can't do better than that. Have always intended, but never got around to, growing garlic.

Good luck

Trotter

Heuston we have a problem.. No skin on most of the garlic it seems.. just small clove bundles.



I'll leave the rest of it there for another month or so and see what Ive got then.

redser7

That's the weirdest thing! They look like spring onions. Sure if they taste like garlic then what the hay. Leave them grow on, whatever they are they look healthy enough

Mothman

Look like Shallots to me

Technophobe

The fact that there are multiple stems there would suggest it's not garlic? Possibly shallots as mothman says?
Can't see from photo whether all the stems merge into one larger stem tho....??

Trotter

The stems don't merge further up. They're not shallots I reckon becase they're all planted from the same 2 bulbs of garlic I got in the garden centre. Only about 1/4 of them are as bad as the pic.. the rest are growing small bulbs as normal. I think those good ones just need more time.

Technophobe

Now that I remember, I think I seen elsewhere somone with same issue where it was like a stem grewq from each clove type.....

Should be fine to eat...and thats the main thing.....may be best to eat these ones and keep better ones for replanting in Autumn..

Trotter

I ate one 'clove' on some toasted bread with cheese on Wednesday night and there's still a smell of garlic in the house. They might look wrong but they're doing everything else right!!

Trotter

So I dug up some of the garlic out of sheer curiosity.. about half of the full crop in total and here's the results. 2 of the bulbs look like garlic as we know it.. the rest either grew into big bulbs with separated cloves, or stayed tiny. I'd love to know where I went wrong. Its odd because all those plants came from me planting the cloves of 3 bulbs.. so they're all from the same bulbs.

redser7

I got pretty much the same results. Reading around, so did many people this year. They are putting it down to the weird weather. Didn't get the sun for the final bulking up and they split or stayed small. Alot of rust around because of mild and damp conditions which kept them small. Just a bad year for garlic

Trotter

We'll give it a lash again in October so! Next year's heat waves can only make it a great garlic season :P

They don't look like garlic but they taste lovely anyway!

redser7

Same here. Going to use it anyway. Have a google, there are ways to store it. Going to freeze most of it in blobs one or two cloves worth each one, chopped up.

18AD

Hmm. Mine are still growing and quite green. I planted them last autumn.

I dug up one and it was pretty small and undivided, so I was a bit disappointed. I think I'll leave them a while longer.

redser7

Yeah mine were over-wintered too. Keep a close eye on them. MIne were small and divided but they spilt up like shallots while I gave them longer to bulk up

Technophobe

Mine have been mostly good I have to say so far..have harvested half so far....and they have mainly been of a good size.....I put some BFB in the holes when planting them and gave them a good old nitrogen fertilizer at various stages in Spring....:D

magicbastarder

our garlic - in a polytunnel - did really well. good size bulbs, the stems started wilting and drying out in the last few weeks, so we started lifting them.

redser7

magicbastarder wrote: »

our garlic - in a polytunnel - did really well. good size bulbs, the stems started wilting and drying out in the last few weeks, so we started lifting them.

Were they overwintered or spring sown? Must try some in the tunnel for next year. Thanks

magicbastarder

i actually can't remember when i planted them!

redser7

Ok thanks. Will try some overwintered anyway

joseph brand

Trotter wrote: »

Heuston we have a problem.. No skin on most of the garlic it seems.. just small clove bundles.



I'll leave the rest of it there for another month or so and see what Ive got then.

This happened to me last year. I planted cloves, which I had purchased in the supermarket for eating. Whilst in the fridge they sprouted, so I popped them in the ground. I thought that it was just due to the fact that they weren't bought from a garden centre.

Your soil looks very mossy in the first photo. Perhaps it's very damp. It also looks like it's full of clay. Have you added any compost or manure to the soil?

See Step 2 here:
http://www.hoodrivergarlic.com/grow-garlic.htm

(Couldn't copy and paste text from this site. First time I've ever seen this.)

Trotter

There's a small bit of moss peat in it but the whole area is quite damp. I'll dig it out in August when the bed is clear and put some proper peat into it.

sirpsycho

Exact same things happened to my garlic crop that was overwintered. I put it down to the mild winter. Read somewhere that they dont store well like this.

Technophobe

As said before, mine is good so far...but the early varities have outperformed the later ones....I know the late ones will mature later but no way have they time to catch up on the size of the earlies.....For anyone growing next year, try planting some Sprint in November..I had a really good crop off this