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Garlic?

13 years ago

I know little about planting garlic. Last spring '10 I planted about 10 cloves in my garden. This spring, they have came up in clusters of plants about 20 in each cluster. They sperate relatively easy with nice roots. At this time, do I seperate each new plant and re-plant them seperately like onions? and is this the right time of year.

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Comments (7)

fatamorgana2121
13 years ago
Fall is the time for planting cloves. But if your garlic has sprouted and it is crowded, I would move them as early as possible in the spring.

I let some hardneck garlic flower last year. I got TONS of little bulbils to plant - which I did and they have ALL appeared to have sprouted. I will have to move or thin some myself.

FataMorgana
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soilent_green
13 years ago
Welcome to garlic growing! It is a very fun hobby, and can get a little bit addictive.

Mature garlic bulbs are comprised of cloves that are separated and planted individually approximately 6 inches apart. Each clove will then grow and produce another bulb of cloves. As such there is no way a single clove will produce a "cluster" of plants.

I am curious what you indeed planted. Did you plant an entire bulb? Or maybe plant clusters of bulbils that are produced at the tops of mature garlic plants? A gardener really wants to avoid doing either of the above. If they are bulbils, try to separate and plant individuals but note you will not get full size garlic bulbs from bulbils in only one season. They are also good to use at that stage as a "green" garlic in cooking.

I mean no offense, but correct terminology is important for folks to correctly assess your situation and provide helpful responses. :-)

There is also good help available from some knowledgeable folks in the GW Allium Forum.

Best of luck!

-Tom

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One of my 2011 garlic sprouts from a single planted clove from a mature bulb:

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A sprouting garlic bulbil cluster produced on the top of garlic plants if allowed to do so:

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A group of plants from an entire cluster of bulbils I planted for the fun of it back in January:

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fatamorgana2121
13 years ago
One of the beauties of GardenWeb is that most forums do overlap with one or more other forums and so asking questions on the different forums will get you other and often varied responses. I'm sure the allium forum will give you a great deal of quality info on growing garlic!

Yes, the bulbils do take multiple seasons to mature but that's ok. It's kind of like planting perennial seed - you expect it to take more than a season to mature. Right now my garlic looks like rows of baby grass.

FataMorgana
0
melvinn
Original Author
13 years ago
I had a bulb in the spring of '10. I seperated the cloves and planted them individually at that time. They each grew into plants which I never touched. This spring it seems like each clove must have turned into a bulb which obviously turned into about 20 cloves. Which have individually sprouted into plants which are in thick clusters. I'm thinking I need to pull the clusters and re-plant each individual.

Thanks
0
harleygirlmars
13 years ago
Out of curiosity, can you take some of the leaves and eat them like you can a green onion?
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seysonn
13 years ago
I am fairly new to growing garlics. I started in 2008.
I have learned that HARDNECKs grow bulbils. Now, if you plant them separately, they will produce a small , round single clove garlic.Or so I am told. I am actually close to verifying that claim this season. My planted bulbils are growing. Their top is much smaller than the one from garlic cloves. And I think there is a corelation between the size of the top and the bottom.
Actually, I like round single clove garlic. Sometimes when you plant a tiny clove or growing condition is poor, you might get a single clove smallish garlis. I had a few of them last year. Now if you plant these single cloves, then you will get normal multi-clove garlic.

Q: Can you eat/cook with garlic greens? A: Definitely you can. They are sold in Asian markets all the time.
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flora_uk
13 years ago
melvinn - if you didn't harvest the garlic in summer 2010 that is why you now have a cluster of plants. When you plant a clove it is expected that you will harvest it when it has produced a bulb ie cluster of new cloves. If you don't harvest it then each clove will grow and in turn produce another bulb/cluster.
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