I love garlic. I eat a clove every day. Wife not to thrilled with it at times. LOL I thought about growing it myself. Is it very hard and when do you plant? Can I grow some from what I buy at the store?
Garlic crop coming in strong
- Thread starter Tom NJ
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We are vegan and I try to grow as much of our own organic/no spray food as possible. Organic/no spray is very expensive. Organic or not should not stop you from eating as much vegetables as possible though. But it is probably better. Three years ago I grew and pressure canned 339 quarts of vegetables. Mostly cruciferous. That was a lot of work. Here are some nice collards, rutabaga, kale, and cabbage I grew. The rutabaga greens are a delicacy.
Garlic is very easy to grow. You should buy hardneck varieties, which are available online or at local garlic festivals or gatherings in August/September. Over 80% of supermarket garlic is grown in China and is often treated to prevent sprouting. Plus hardneck varieties produce scapes in June, which are delicious.
Plant the largest cloves from large bulbs about 2-3" deep (flat end down) in well worked fertile soil between mid-October and mid-November, cover them with mulch and let them winter over. Feed with high nitrogen fertilizer in early March, early April, and early May, then stop. Cut the scapes in June and enjoy them as a second crop, and harvest the bulbs in July when half of the leaves are yellow/brown. Cure them in a warm breezy place away from sunlight for about a month, then trim off the stems and roots and store in a cool dry place like a cellar. There is tons of information and instructions online.
I sell about 100 bulbs to a disabled friend, but do not want to get into commercializing my hobby by selling more.
Here are some pictures of my garlic plants from early May. I planted 485.
Tom
Plant the largest cloves from large bulbs about 2-3" deep (flat end down) in well worked fertile soil between mid-October and mid-November, cover them with mulch and let them winter over. Feed with high nitrogen fertilizer in early March, early April, and early May, then stop. Cut the scapes in June and enjoy them as a second crop, and harvest the bulbs in July when half of the leaves are yellow/brown. Cure them in a warm breezy place away from sunlight for about a month, then trim off the stems and roots and store in a cool dry place like a cellar. There is tons of information and instructions online.
I sell about 100 bulbs to a disabled friend, but do not want to get into commercializing my hobby by selling more.
Here are some pictures of my garlic plants from early May. I planted 485.
Tom
Wow, that's fantastic! I might have to try that out for next year. I'll have to take check out the farmer's markets later this year for seed bulbs, or maybe I'll order some seed garlic.
Thanks for the pictures!
Thanks for the pictures!
The garlic growers out here cut off the irrigation, mow the tops off once they are dried to a crisp, then harvest them into bins.
That process probably doesn't work in rain and humidity.
That process probably doesn't work in rain and humidity.
Amazing view and Awesome Garlic!! Congrats!!
Mine were much smaller, but I cultivated them by sticking them deep in the mulch around my fruit trees. Local nursery didn't have sets so I just planted cloves I got from Trader Joe's. Wife objected to the size, but they were almost no incremental work.
Thanks for the info on what to buy and how to plant. I'm going to clean up our raised bed and get it ready for this fall to plant. It is full of Florida Betony now. I need to kill that off and clean up the soil.
I use garlic in canning and cooking, and therefore don't try to compare taste with raw garlic. I select varieties based on bulb size, number of cloves, storage capability, strength, and ease of peeling. These three varieties are condensed from dozens of varieties I have grown over the years. All are consistently large and average about six fat cloves per bulb. They all also have good bite and are easy peeling. The Estonian Red is earliest, followed by Russian Red and then Music. Music has the best storage life of the three, and if I had to grow just one it would be Music.
Love driving thru Gilroy,Ca. on Hwy152, the smell of garlic being processed is to die for, Gilroy has to be the garlic capitol in Cali, their annual Garlic Festival is heaven, anything and everything made with garlic can be tasted and bought
http://gilroygarlicfestival.com/
http://gilroygarlicfestival.com/
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Happy birthday, too, Tom! Don't put any garlic in the cake, that's all.
Originally Posted By: Garak
Happy birthday, too, Tom! Don't put any garlic in the cake, that's all.
why?
it makes for nice flavoured candles... (Im a transilvanian....)
Happy birthday, too, Tom! Don't put any garlic in the cake, that's all.
why?
it makes for nice flavoured candles... (Im a transilvanian....)
Originally Posted By: Malo83
Love driving thru Gilroy,Ca. on Hwy152, the smell of garlic being processed is to die for, Gilroy has to be the garlic capitol in Cali, their annual Garlic Festival is heaven, anything and everything made with garlic can be tasted and bought
http://gilroygarlicfestival.com/
I don't know if you can really smell it being processed. Once I was driving through on the last day of the Gilroy Garlic Festival and certainly the smell of cooked garlic was apparent from 101.
Still - there's a misconception that Gilroy is where most California garlic comes from. I buy from places that specifically state where the garlic comes from. Sometimes it says just "California" while other times it says "Gilroy" or "Christopher Ranch", which is the largest grower in the Gilroy area. Over 90% of garlic grown in California is from the San Joaquin Valley portion of the Central Valley. I've seen open trailers that were loaded with garlic on I-5. They often go to Gilroy, which has a huge garlic processing infrastructure as well as a center for packaging and delivery. They even process imported garlic from China there.
Quote:
http://www.ipmcenters.org/cropprofiles/docs/CAgarlic.pdf
Principal California garlic producing counties, grouped by region.
The San Joaquin Valley region grew 91% the harvested garlic acreage in 1997.
The western San Joaquin Valley, which includes the counties of Fresno and Kern, represents 96.5% of the total state garlic acres. Fresno County represents the majority of these acres with 86% and Kern County grows 12.5%. Some garlic is grown in the Southeast desert counties of Riverside and San Bernadino counties. Lassen and Siskiyou counties in northern California and Mono county in the eastern Sierras produce a small amount of garlic, which is used mainly for seed. In the Central Coastal Region, primarily around Gilroy and Hollister,, some garlic is still grown, but the area now serves primarily as the center for fresh market shippers and dehydrators who still have their facilities located in this area. At one time, this was the original garlic-growing center of California.
Love driving thru Gilroy,Ca. on Hwy152, the smell of garlic being processed is to die for, Gilroy has to be the garlic capitol in Cali, their annual Garlic Festival is heaven, anything and everything made with garlic can be tasted and bought
http://gilroygarlicfestival.com/
I don't know if you can really smell it being processed. Once I was driving through on the last day of the Gilroy Garlic Festival and certainly the smell of cooked garlic was apparent from 101.
Still - there's a misconception that Gilroy is where most California garlic comes from. I buy from places that specifically state where the garlic comes from. Sometimes it says just "California" while other times it says "Gilroy" or "Christopher Ranch", which is the largest grower in the Gilroy area. Over 90% of garlic grown in California is from the San Joaquin Valley portion of the Central Valley. I've seen open trailers that were loaded with garlic on I-5. They often go to Gilroy, which has a huge garlic processing infrastructure as well as a center for packaging and delivery. They even process imported garlic from China there.
Quote:
http://www.ipmcenters.org/cropprofiles/docs/CAgarlic.pdf
Principal California garlic producing counties, grouped by region.
The San Joaquin Valley region grew 91% the harvested garlic acreage in 1997.
The western San Joaquin Valley, which includes the counties of Fresno and Kern, represents 96.5% of the total state garlic acres. Fresno County represents the majority of these acres with 86% and Kern County grows 12.5%. Some garlic is grown in the Southeast desert counties of Riverside and San Bernadino counties. Lassen and Siskiyou counties in northern California and Mono county in the eastern Sierras produce a small amount of garlic, which is used mainly for seed. In the Central Coastal Region, primarily around Gilroy and Hollister,, some garlic is still grown, but the area now serves primarily as the center for fresh market shippers and dehydrators who still have their facilities located in this area. At one time, this was the original garlic-growing center of California.
Yum, I can almost smell it.
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