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My garlic is suspiciously tall

lcbrittainlcbrittain Posts: 26
in Problem solving
Last October, I planted 6 cloves in 2 20 litre pots, 3 apiece. As it happened, only 2 in each pot ‘took’. The cloves were the ‘grandchildren’ of beautiful, purple heads of garlic grown on a farm in the Isle of Wight. I live in Cyprus. The first crop, the ‘children’, had a few, but fat, cloves, fewer than were on the original heads. Now my plants, in plenty of sun - when it shines - are nearly a metre high, with thick stalks and vigorous green leaves. I suspect that all their energy is going into their height rather than into making fat cloves, and that this time, I will only have one large clove per plant! What am I doing wrong? I wonder if anyone could advise me how to encourage the underground growth rather than the height.

Posts

  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    Garlic grown in the UK usually needs a period of frost to make it form the cloves that make the bulb.   Sounds to me like yours are by-passing the bulb formation phase and going straight for the flowers and seeds phase.

    You'd be better off buying and planting garlic suited to your own climate in Cyprus.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • lcbrittainlcbrittain Posts: 26
    I have just dug up my garlic from their pots. They have huge fat heads, at least three of them, with lots of juicy cloves, very like their grandparents from the farm on the Isle of Wight. I can hardly believe it, and am delighted, of course. Their parent cloves must have acclimatized to Cyprus weather, although we rarely went 30 days below 10C last winter, except at night. Two of them even have little ‘cloves’ in their stalks. I am amazed!the teaspoon is there for scale.
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