Sharon,

Without knowing if you've had enough moisture over the winter and into spring to cause them to rot, it is hard to guess what you're seeing, but I'd guess it is either they got too wet and have become diseased or they're maturing early this year because it was such a mild winter and we have had such an early warm-up. Hopefully it is the latter, and not the former.

On the ones that have had the stalks lay down, I'd dig gently in the soil around the bulbs and see if you have normal, healthy bulbs there. If you do, I think you might as well harvest because it sounds like they're done. If you have diseased bulbs that have rot or spotting on them, I'd take them out anyway so they don't infect the others.

I do know that some people in OK already have garlic that is ready to be harvested about a month early.

I don't think it will hurt for you to leave it in the ground a few more weeks if that is what you want to do as long as the soil isn't staying really wet. Since it has stopped growing, though, there's not really anything to be gained by leaving it there.

Just think of it as one more oddity related to this spring's weather. Everything in my garden is producing early, so I am not surprised your garlic is behaving the same way. My early corn already has silked (yes, it is ridiculously early) and likely will be ready for harvest in about 10 days. If so, that will make it about 10-12 days earlier than its ever been before. My beans were ready early. We're going to have such a big early harvest of tomatoes that it is starting to scare me. I guess maybe Mother Nature is offering an early harvest this year to make amends for the rotten gardening year of 2011.

Dawn

I dug them up! Wonderful, large heads of garlic :~)
It's just hard for me to believe they're done, but they are...I do hope this year's harvest redeems the awfulness of last year's!!

Sharon

I dug 4 heads of Elephant Garlic today. I was surprised at how large they were. We celebrated Mothers Day here today and had a large group here. Some of Madge's kids and grand kids love fresh stuff from the garden. We sent onions, garlic, kale, potatoes and Chinese cabbage home with them. The Chinese cabbage and kale were really the only things that were "ready" to harvest, but everything looked great and we were happy to share.

I must learn more about growing and using many items I want to grow, I also harvested my first bell pepper today. It was still green, but Large. The Jalapenos are doing well also.

Larry

In this weird year of everything ripening early, I have plums that are ripening. This tree usually has its first ripe fruit right around the week before Father's Day, and sometimes not until Father's Day. It is so early it astonishes me...and that first plum tasted pretty good too.

It looks like a lot of us are getting a lot of early harvests. In our garden, we've already harvested these warm-season veggies: green beans, zucchini, yellow summer squash, and tomatoes. It seems crazy to be harvesting all that warm-season stuff at the same time we're harvesting the usual cool-season stuff.

Sweet corn is almost ready to harvest too. All this early harvesting just blows my mind and makes me wonder "what next?"

Dawn

I planted a few potatoes and one row is starting to yellow and die back. I think it is Yukon Gold. They aren't ready to dig yet, but are sure showing signs that they are finishing up. The other row still looks fine.

Carol, Nothing much would surprise me at this point. The whole year just keeps accelerating and accelerating. I want to ask all the plants "what's your rush?" and wonder if they know something we don't know....like maybe it will be a dreadful summer after all and they want to beat the heat for their own sake.

My garden has never looked better, but that scares me because if it keeps looking this good, the harvesting, processing and eating is going to just about kill us. Tim says he doesn't even know how I walk in the garden because the plants are widening out so much they are filling up the pathways. I just plunge on through all that growth though, hoping there's not any snakes lurking near my toes.

Dawn

I went back through some older posts and it looks like I had already planted when I posted on Feb 25th, and YG are supposed to take 90 to 100 days. I just noticed the yellowing starting today so maybe they are OK since the normal DTM should be 2-3 weeks from now. I don't think anything else is happening since the next row over looks just find, but they are a different kind.

Today we have harvested two rows of YG potatoes and one bed of garlic! Its one month early as compared to last year. I looked at last year's calender, harvested garlic on June 4-5, 2011. I am going to plant cluster beans in garlic bed, but I usually plant in June.

I planted peppers much ealry this year, those planted in March seems to be no happy, leaves in tips are curled and plants bit stalled. But same peppers growing in greenhouse become very large and in full blooms, last week planted them in ground are making better progress than match planted. Eggplants were stalled, but now putting lot of new growth. Rest of the plants looks ok.

I am sure all of you had wonderful mother's day.

-Chandra

Carol, I no longer remember when I planted potatoes but think it was pretty early. I do have one row that's starting to look like it is reaching maturity. Based on when I planted and on how warm the weather has been, I am not really surprised. This year I moved my potatoes to the Peter Rabbit Garden which is sort of hidden compared to the main garden, so the potatoes can take their time and die back without me worrying that everyone driving by will see them and think that my plants are dying and look like crap.

This year I have the sugar snap peas growing where the potatoes grew last year, so when the Colorado Potato Beetles hatch, they find themselves climbing and eating pea plants and catnip. I've been trying to find and squish all of them before they can do much damage and before they move across the pathway to the adjacent bed filled with tomato plants. So far, knock on wood, the CPBs aren't finding the plants in the PRG. They've only really begun popping up in the last 3 or 4 days and yesterday I found and killed about 8 or 10 of them, so it isn't a big problem yet.

Chandra, Congrats on the great early harvest. I bet everything tasted yummy.

I have found that planting peppers early when the soil is still too cool for them doesn't pay off because they tend to stall just as you described. Every year I keep my peppers in their pots for so long that I start thinking I waited too late to plant them. I usually put them into the ground around the last week of April in an average year or the first week in May if we're having a cold spring. You'd think that would mean I have late production, but it doesn't. I usually am harvesting the first peppers in late May and have a heavy harvest in early to mid-June, usually around June 10th to the 20th. It helps that the plants often are in bloom or even have tiny peppers on them by the time I transplant them into the ground.

This year I did put a few pepper plants into containers near the garage even before I put plants into the ground. Those containers sat on the concrete patio where they stayed nice and warm from the sunlight/heat reflecting off the concrete and the wall of the garage. My first peppers harvested will be from those plants.

I had a wonderful Mother's Day with Tim and Chris and hope everyone else had a lovely Mother's Day too.

Dawn

I pulled my first garlic this evening. I finished up planting peppers and checked one variety I had been watching for a week. It is an heirloom variety from a gentleman in Rocky Ford, CO. I pulled two. The soil being sandy and wet let me pull them with little effort. I will pull/dig the rest of this variety in the morning and check another that looks to be mature. Most of the rest appears to be at least 10 days or further away from being ready. One bulb was average and the other large. Most of the bulbs I've ran my finger down and checked are nice sized. Some could be as big as I've grown. Won't know for sure till I get them out of the ground. My onions may be another month. But at least things are starting to ripen/mature. I can't say that this variety is early as this is the first year I've grown it. Purple striped. Very pretty bulbs and wrappers. The hail did some minor damage but nothing severe. Wiped out a few bean plants. Split open one green tomato right down the middle. Had a couple lose their crown and a few others lose large limbs. But didn't lose any whole plants and feel most if not all will recover fast and move on. Jay

Jay,

Glad to hear that the hail didn't do more damage - hoping, too, that your plants recover quickly and do just "move on".

Here's to a great crop of garlic for you this year...it's YOUR fault that I won't ever have a spring without it again - it's amazingly easy to grow and there are so many different flavors; thank you!

Sharon

Here is the last of my garlic and bulbing onions, cabbage about gone also.

This is my 2ND growing them, still a lot of room for improvement but I'm happy.

Larry

Larry,
They look nice. Is that a white softneck type of garlic? As a garlic fanatic I always have to ask the type and variety. Looks like very nice sized bulbs. My onions will be interesting as this is the first year I've grown from seeds. And have never grew most of the varieties. They seem to be doing very well. Will see how they bulb up. I have one red variety I purchased from Baker Creek with huge stems and the leaves are getting large also. Was some smaller than the one variety from Dixondale (Candy) I planted but about to pass it in size and planted next to it in the row.

Sharon glad you like garlic. I don't have near as many varieties as I've had in the past. I kept saying I was going to cut back on varieties and grow more of what I liked and those that did well here. Well the severe hail last year along with traveling a long distance to work helped speed up the decision and action. The hail basically stopped my onions and garlic from bulbing much more than they were at the time. The bulbs looked small when I dug them so unless they were a real favorite I never tagged and labeled them. Just dug and hung to dry. To my surprise several had larger cloves than I expected. So in my rows this year I have two different batches of assorted bulbs. Some I'm sure I'll know and some I won't. I have dug one variety and half of another. But have had good size overall for the varieties they are. The reason I only dug half was I plant two rows 24" apart both of the same variety. That way one T label can mark two rows. The north side was matured and half of the leaves had died back. I usually dig when 1/3 to 1/2 of the leaves have died. In this case the necks were soft also like the first variety I dug. The odd part here is the south side doesn't show any signs of maturing or leaves dieing. Same variety 24 inches apart. I planted in mid Nov and covered in mulch. As far as I know they sprouted and emerged around the same time. Not sure if it was an water issue or what. The cloves were very likely from the same bulb. So I only dug half of it. Yes it is easy to grow. Not sure why anyone wouldn't. But I didn't for years. Just like horseradish and asparagus. As far as I'm concerned the 3 easiest crops that require the least maintenance and attention to grow a good to great crop. I do plan on planting my garlic a few weeks earlier this fall. Of course I always do but never seem to have the soil ready when many plant it. Although my bulb size has always been very good except for last year. This year I will use the ground where the sweet corn is. And I have the new tillers and a furrowing attachment so will be able to prepare the soil early. Jay

Im growing garlic next year! - Now the research begins....

BTW How long til we normally put garlic in the the ground? (I need to know how long I have to study)

Jay, I cant tell you a lot about the onions, garlic or cabbage because most of the labels I cant read now.

I think I planted Candy, Candy apple or red Apple from Dixondale, 1015Y from Bonnie. The garlic was given to me by my neighbor, he called it Elephant garlic and was planted in 10-25-11, I think it is a hard neck garlic. The onions were planted the last half of Feb.. The cabbage is Early Jersey Wakefield.

I bought some onion seed today. The only thing I know about them is, there is a pretty picture on the package with the name Cebolla, Valencia.

Larry

Tracey,

The OSU-recommended planting dates for garlic are September 1 - October 15th. You can plant it later than that, but probably not much earlier because of the heat.

Dawn

Larry,
I grow a strain of Elephant garlic that I obtained from a grower in CO. It is the largest of the Elephant garlic I've grown. The hail last year hurt it real bad and I didn't have as much to replant as normal. Also the size was a lot smaller. This year it seems to be sizing up well and I should be able to replenish my supply again. It really isn't a true garlic. I will attach a description of it. Regardless it is widely grown and I like it.
Elephant garlic (Allium ampeloprasum var. ampeloprasum) is a plant belonging to the onion genus. It is not a true garlic, but actually a variant of the species to which the garden leek belongs. It has a tall, solid, flowering stalk and broad, flat leaves much like those of the leek, but forms a bulb consisting of very large, garlic-like cloves. The flavor of these, while not exactly like garlic, is much more similar to garlic than to leeks. The flavor is milder than garlic, and much more palatable to some people than garlic when used raw as in salads.

Jay, thanks for the info. My wife and I have grown up in a culture where there was very little meat or spicy food consumed. We are learning more about growing and using peppers, onions, garlic and spices. It has been fun for the both of us. A year ago I could hardly stand the smell of onions or garlic in the house, now it makes me hungry.
Madge even made pepper jelly last year and we loved it. We have beed married about 8 years and are growing and learning together.

Larry

elkwe I would love to know where to by the Elephant garlic seed that you mentioned from CO. I only planted a 4 bulbs this time and they were a little late but want to plant a larger patch of it next year.

Dawn thanks for the date to plant it -- Sept will be here before we know it !!! I'm getting a area ready now to plant onion seeds and the garlic seed if I can locate it.

Rita in Washita

Rita I will try again. The GW gremlings must of ate my previous post. I will attach a link to the site where my original cloves came from. A great family to do business with. They offer several varieties and all perform in their climate which can be brutal. If you only want a bulb to try it I may have that later. If you need more than that then this is a good place to order from. He sent me my first cloves as extras on an order of some other varieties. I've had several of the bulbs in the 5-6 inch range with a few around 7 inches. I'm hoping I will see good size this year. The few I've felt of feel like they will be. The elephant garlic has a garlic flavor but fairly mild. I'm also growing an OK heirloom variety this year. It has a different growth habit but seems to be bulbing up nicely.
I just want to remind anyone who may miss what is called the ideal time to plant. I don't ever remember planting before Nov 1st here and some years it has been mid to late Dec. And have always had good size and good bulbs except last year when the severe hail stopped my plants in their tracks. Planting early I feel might make more of a difference in areas where it gets bitterly cold and the ground freezes under the mulch. Here with a good mulch layer my ground very seldom freezes. The garlic develops roots and will be green in the mulch all winter. As the green emerges from the mulch it will get nipped many times. As the man who taught me how to grow garlic always said. The last day you can plant it this year is Dec 31st. With that being said I do intend to plant by Nov 1st this year if all goes well. Jay

Here is a link that might be useful: South Road Garlic Farm