Forum home› Fruit & veg
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Garlic Query

Glasgowgardener777Glasgowgardener777 Posts: 41
in Fruit & veg
Hi folks,

any garlic experts out there? First year trying, planted picardy wight in Late October, all seemed to be going well, harvested around 10th July. The bulbs felt a bit soft when removing from ground, but I thought they would harden when drying off. Then left them in shed for 4 weeks. Tried using one today and the cloves had formed but were still soft and on cutting one its kind of oniony like. Is this normal for home grown garlic? If not, any ideas on what I've done wrong?

Photo is my garlic bulb in background, one of my cloves cut in half and a supermarket clove cut as a comparison. Use a lot of garlic and was really looking forward to using my own  :'(

Posts

  • bertrand-mabelbertrand-mabel Posts: 2,697
    edited August 2021
    No not normal.
    We planted out this year in the autumn as well and have had very poor return for the first time.
    If you look at the Harvest 2021 thread someone (sorry can't remember who) posted some fantastic photos of their harvest.
    Check it and maybe ask them how they did such a brilliant crop.

    Just checked and it was @WillowBark
  • wrighttwrightt Posts: 234
    I have only just harvested mine today so you may have harvested them too early.  
  • philippasmith2philippasmith2 Posts: 3,742
    The one you have cut in half is actually 4 small separate cloves which would  ( should ) have grown on.
    Garlic normally take at least 10 months in the ground to form decent bulbs which are worth harvesting - dried correctly after lifting should give you a decent amount of useable cloves.
    If you look at SM garlic, you will notice that the large cloves often surround the small ones but if they have been dried properly, the little ones are still useable.
  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    I agree that you picked them to early, (mine came out around the 30th of July) and because of that they are not drying right, so instead of getting lots of thin dry sheets of paper like skin and then the plump clove, you're getting thick wet skin and a dried out clove in the middle. With garlic it's best to wait until around half the leaves have turned brown and then pull it. If you wait to long all that will happen is the outer skin will rot off, the garlic is still perfectly usable.
Sign In or Register to comment.