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Garlic bulbs for winter or spring?
MrsMason
Posts: 3
in Fruit & veg
Thought I'd try planting garlic this year, so on a trip to B & Q yesterday i saw some 'elephant' and 'Casablanca' garlic bulbs. Grabbed them thinking they would be to plant in October/November like I had been reading but these should have been planted March/April for July/August harvest. My long winded question is will they be ok to keep and plant out over winter like normal or are they not suitable? TIA
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I'm not an expert but I think garlic bulbs don't keep terribly well. Certainly by December my autumn planting ones which hadn't been planted due to a house move were going very soft (planted on 18th December and growing just fine).
Bumping this message to the top of the forum so those that know better than I can assist!
I think you might be best to give those garlic bulbs a miss and buy some in good condition for planting in Autumn.
Elephant garlic is not actually garlic, though it is treated much the same.
Thank you for your replies, must pay better attention but may just stick them in now and see how they do.
just out of curiosity if anybody knows, how do they manage so well in the spring as I thought it was frosts that were good for autum ones and caused them to divide
It's only my opinion but I don't think spring planted garlic does as well. I usually plant in autumn but started to grow extra in March for the allotment and it's looking very tiny, with little growth compared to the autumn planted garlic which should be ready for harvest soon.
..and yes, garlic needs frost to divide.
Hello , I agree with Zoomer very good advice , I do the same on my Allottment
Sorry to disagree, but I have never been convinced that frosts are needed to make the bulb separate into cloves. Over the years I have planted garlic in Autumn, Winter and Spring. They have been frozen and snowed on some years, but not in others. Makes absolutely no difference!
Thank you for your additional comments, very helpful
Hello Mrs Mason, it appears that Casablanca is a hardneck garlic which requires both winter chilling and lengthening daylight hours to trigger clove formation as Zoomer mentions. If you've not already planted them, refrigerate them for a couple of weeks and then plant them. The resulting bulbs may only produce rounds (undivdied cloves) and if you can resist eating everything that you grow, the rounds ought to produce humongous bulbs if you replant them in autumn. Softneck garlic - artichoke and silverskins are less dependant on cold weather to trigger clove formation and can be planted in spring but may yield smaller bulbs than if autumn planted. Welshonion - perhaps you have only grown soft neck garlic varieties? Most hardnecks varieties (excepting Creole perhaps) grow best in colder climates and definitely require winter chilling for good sized differentiated bulbs. This is a good link to an overview of the primary garlic groups http://garlicseed.blogspot.ca/p/kinds-of-garlic_03.html