I am from the Gulf Coast and I am growing garlic for the first time but I perused my local Extension office manned by University of Florida horticulturists and their website to see what will grow in my area before I planted. They also have Master Gardeners' program. As far as I know, every Florida County has a UF Extension office. Thanks. ->Dee

Dee,
What type Garlic are you trying?

I bought some white/purple garlic at WalMart back in May and put 4 bulbs in a brown bag in the crisper of the refrigerator. I also ordered 7 types from Filaree farms and that arrived last week. I took half of each type and put them in individual brown lunch bags and labeled. I then put those in a larger brown bag and put them in the crisper also. I checked the temperature today and it was 42 degrees. I'll plant the chilled and nonchilled to compare results. I'm not sure if this will help, but it's all a big experiment anyway.

The types I bought were...
- 2 Artichoke (Inchelium Red & Red Toch)
- 2 Marbled Purple Stripe (Siberian & Bogatyr)
- 3 Creole (Creole Red, Burgandy, and Cuban Purple)

Hopefully I'll find something that will grow and bulb-up here in central Florida. Where did you get your seed garlic and what type is it?

Thanks, Michael

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:953545}}

Any other Florida Garlic growers?
I need to hear from others, good or bad results.

Thanks, Michael

Michael,

I am trying some porcelain hardnecks and creole reds. They are now sprouting like crazy. I got them from our local feeds store.

This might help: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/mv064

Dee

Dee,
I have seen that web site before, but went and read it again. It says to put the garlic in cold storage(50 deg) for 9 months or they will not form bulbs here in Florida. The 2 garlics I tried last year,(Music & Legacy), did not form bulbs.

I don't see how you can chill them for 9 months though. From what I understand, garlic does not store for over 7-9 months. From planting to harvest, they are in the ground for 7-9 mo. Then you cure and clean them, taking about another month. That would only leave 2-4 months before it's time to plant the cloves for the next crop.

The 7 varities I bought from Filaree Farms will get about 4-6 weeks in the refrigerator crisper at 40-42 degrees before time to plant. I also bought a purple type from Wal-Mart and put 4 bulbs of that into the refrigerator back in May. So it will get 5 months of chilling before time to plant.

Has anyone in Florida (or other warm area) chilled their garlic before planting in the fall?

Any info or help you could pass on to me would be helpful.
Thanks, Michael

I'm looking now to see if I can find the site where I got all my garlic info. There are only a few that do well in FL, and almost none of the hardnecks, only the creoles. I'll get in touch when I find it, unless someone else has it.

I tried garlic this year. Just bought in Walmart and planted in October. No cooling before planting. I didn't know it needs fertilizing, so I didn't do a good job on that. Some of them did't make bulbs at all. some have very small ones.

I haven't had much luck with garlic either, I didn't know about trying to chill it. I wonder if that 9 month chill time should read 9 weeks instead?

Junkyardgirl-
thanks for that link to the extremely helpful website - there is an offer there for a sampler of garlic that will do in the customer's area of the country. Sounds like a good place to start.
Avalon

Last October I planted the garlic sampler that you're talking about, junkyardgirl... I wholly imagine that there is some step that I've missed in growing garlic, but since October I have had nothing but nice-looking (though not exactly hearty) green stems and nothing under ground. They look like thick green onions. All of them-- the early garlics, the middles, and the lates. Here's what I did:

I created a bed with mixed sand, topsoil, and compost. Went a little heavier than usual on the sand to help with drainage.

First batch of garlic rotted thanks to late-season rains.

Second batch went in at the end of October with no drip system, just deep hand watering when the soil felt dry down a couple of inches.

I know that up North garlic takes forever and a day to be ready, but the rainy season is around the corner here. I worry that if this garlic is just doing its thing and needs more time to set bulbs the rainy season is going to rot the works away.

Any ideas what I've done wrong? I've written to Bob to ask him the same thing, but like I said, I really feel like I've missed something in the process! If any garlic were going to grow down here I know it would be his!

Jane

well, how do you measure success? i planted a bunch of the dinky cloves at the center of garlic from the grocer (white garlic from publix). i guess i started sometime in january... straight up compost. sunny corner near my herb pots, so the garlic was kept pretty consistently moist.

the thing is, i planted them for the tops, which i harvested over and over all winter long. i started pulling these up the last week or so because the tops are dying. i didn't expect anything, but the cloves are small, nicely formed, very pungent.

i imagine if i'd 1) planted them early, in november; 2) used big fat cloves not the dinky shriveled ones; 3) not cut the tops every couple weeks... well, i'd probably have had a better harvest.

Update! I just heard back from Bob, who tells me that my garlic is indeed right on track and will only need a few weeks in the summer to bulb up. Best of all the little guys will need more water then to do their thing, so bring on the rainy season! My garlic is still in the game!

Jane