Here I just like to give an update on my German Red bulbil growing.

I did not fertilize the bed, only watered the bed about twice. I had very serious weed issue and since I have a large garden and grow so many things, I was always behind with weeding. I believe this plays some role in the bulbil development.

I dug 1/4 of the harvest on 7/8/2015. Here is the harvest:

Then on 7/16/2015, I dug the rest. There are more cloved heads. I cut most of the scapes, but still left some scapes for the new bulbils. As you can see here, the heads with scapes cut are much larger and the heads with scapes and new bulbils are much smaller. Can't even compare them.

I planted a total about 660 bulbils. I believe I harvest about 500 of them. Some are lost since I may have dug them late and they were hard to find. Of the harvest, most of them (about 70%) are rounds.

Next year, I'm going to dig another new bulbil bed and replant most of the garlic harvested this year. Since they are mostly rounds, I expect them to grow to regular sized heads. I'll need to keep up with the weeding. Weeds are serious problem with the size of the heads. Also, since I do not need any more bulbils, I plan to cut all the scapes when they come out. I believe garlic should respond quite well to fertilizer. Since my garlic is organic, I'll need to figure out some ways to fertilize the garlic bed.

Garlic likes sun, good soil. And does not weeds or wet condition. I expect a better year ahead with new garlic growing.

Garlic and in fact almost all alliums respond very well to side dressing or top dressing with fertilizer during the growing season especially early in the spring and into summer. And they like moderate nitrogen when in active growth. They also generally respond real well to irrigation provided the bed is well drained, either naturally or by being raised.

I dug my heirloom garlic bulbil bed yesterday. Lots of bulbils up to about the size of shell peas. Also much smaller bulbs than the bed of the same type that had its scapes removed. The bed with the early summer planted cloves is still completely green with no sign of scapes. The cloves were themselves small to begin with, all that remained of bulbs stored so long most of the cloves had dried up. The small fraction that remained plump all grew and are really looking like they are reverting to rounds. If so then harvest should be early autumn.

I also dug my sand leeks yesterday. Also very small bulbs with quite a number of decent sized bulbils. The stems were all dried up and some of the bulbs came apart into well wrapped individual cloves; so I was a little late in getting them out of the ground. We shall see how they do from an early autumn planting over the coming winter. These have been left in the ground now for about three years; so we shall see how well their cloves transplant, and then next year how well they respond to having the scapes pruned off. In most respects the sand leeks perform like a small stemmed, small bulbed garlic, but are said to be much milder when eaten. I haven't gotten that far yet. So far I haven't seen cloves big enough to monkey around with. (My original sand leek stock came from Britain as bulbils which were just plunked down in a bed out of the way. Now I have enough for a decent trial planting)

It is such a pain to grow those porcelain garlic bulbils. I planted one row and lost them all to weeds. When I remember to dig them, they disappeared when the tiny leaves are gone.

The good thing with the German Red is that, the bulbils are large, average pea sized. When I harvest my own bulbils, they are about corn sized, bigger. So I figure the source I received last year's bulbils probably harvested too early. The mature bulbils should be brown, not red.

The past season, I also grew a total of 10 varieties of garlic cloves. Since I tried to save the new bulbils, the garlic heads were really small. So for the new varieties, I'll probably grow mostly bulbils, not cloves. Since they are so many varieties, it is going to be a challenge to mange all of them. I plan to divide my big garlic bed into several smaller beds, so I can separate them better.

Since the German Red did so well last year, it is going to be my main crop. I'll also try to develop Music and German White since they are the most popular varieties locally. But since the cost is relatively high (high price per pound and few cloves per head), I still want to grow from bulbils. I harvested quite a bit bulbils last season at the cost of the garlic heads.

The other thing I consider is to grow the bulbils in large pots in late winter. It is much easier to manage the weed problem in pots. No drainage problem, easy to fertilize. And easy to separate the varieties, like one variety per pot. From what I know, spring planted garlic probably grow into round since the growing season is shorter. But that is perfectly fine for me to grow anything bigger than the bulbils.

I always want to try spring planting garlic and compare. I planted some store bought ones last year and got small rounds even smaller than a single clove. But I'm not sure if the quality of the store bought garlic. So no real comparison.

Two years ago after spending most of my life trying to remember what was planted there with the frustration variety and row markers frequently getting knocked over or accidentally kicked around. I set down to map out my planting ahead of putting anything in the ground. I keep the map as an image file. My pattern for all my gardening is 2'-3' wide rows block planted with 2' walkways. Where I have multiple varieties like the garlics, I plant a few tulips between them if fall planted and glads between them if spring planted. One could certainly use other flowers like say marigolds or petunias. Feed the soul so to speak while keeping the plantings organized.

I have pretty much divided my garden into thirds; so even though it is small things get planted in relatively new areas every year. I may be getting old, but every year so far I have misremembered what variety was planted where at least once; the image file has been a god send.

I grew some bulbils indoors two years ago in pots by the window. I started them in late winter. They were a large Russian variety and really grew well. I transplanted them outside in early Spring and harvested in July. It ended up producing very large rounds.

I didn't understand how verbalization worked at the time so I considered it a failure. Based on what I know now I plan to start some of my porcelain bulbils in the spring indoors to avoid winter kill and to just aim for a marble sized bulb that I can harvest in summer and transplant back outside in spring.

I have not planted from bulbils before and don't intend to, but I do similar to Dutch by creating a map of my garlic planting using a excel spreadsheet. My garlic beds are 4'x10'x10" raised beds and this year I am going to plant 9 varieties total in 3 beds in a 5 x 19 grid. Last year I did 7 x 19 grids in each bed. I am hoping that the less intensive planting will give the plants more sunlight and air flow and cut down on the botrytis or neck rot that I had problems with this year with the very wet growing season.

Planting garlic (bulbils or cloves) is still complicated the unconventional ways, such as indoors, in pots and in other seasons other than fall. We'll have to experiment and share what we know.

It is a good idea to plant some flowers as markers. Since I planted my cloves in long rows with a single skip (gap) as markers, with some plants missing or dead, it created a lot of problems with garlic IDs. I think some of them are mixed now. But since they are only mixed with the adjacent varieties, I may be able to ID them when they grow bigger this season. Only the main German Red is not mixed since they were planted in separate bed.

I'm going to broadcast the tiny bulbils just like planting turf seeds. They do not need much room to grow. As for my rounds or cloves, I probably grow them in like 6"x8" etc. Again, I'm going to plant them in short rows for easy ID.

The first 4 original photos are for the first year German Red bulbils. The spacing is 4"x6" and I found that to be very adequate. The bed is 6' by 20'. The only issue is that, the bed is a little too wide and made the weeding to be hard.

The other bulbil bed is 9' by 16'. Again 6" between the rows and various spacing in the rows. 6" just fits the width of my shoes when I was doing the weeding. I'll probably shrink the bed since this bed is very close to the woods.

My main garlic (clove) bed is 10' by 26'. But that will be used for other things and I'll dig a new garlic bed.

RedSun, I am surprised at how large your bulbils grew in one growing season. I left a scape or two to develop on each variety I grew, mainly to see what they looked like and to see differences between varieties. I have some large German Red bulbils. After seeing your pictures, I plan to plant them along with some cloves this fall. A few other varieties have larger bulbils, too, and I may try growing them, also. Probably will not plant the rice sized bulbils, not even for an experiment. I doubt I could keep track of them with their growth looking so much like grassy weeds!

Thanks for posting your results. It will change my fall planting ideas.

Actually the German Red bulbils I harvested this season are even larger than the ones I planted. Since I planted several hundreds of them, some are large and some are small rounds the size of a single clove.

I believe garlic in general responds very well to all favorable conditions, such as more sunlight, proper moisture and fertilizer.

I did not provide the most favorable condition. New bed with a lot of weeds and I was slow in weeding. I did not apply any fertilizer. And I harvested them rather late..... They could have been much better.

They will be my main crop this year. Just hope I can take care of them better. Then they should grow into regular sized heads.

I'm just about to order some German Red garlic for planting this fall. How many bulbils are you getting on average per umbel?

I think fewer than 10 each.

I had been planning on experimenting with bulbils in 2012, but that was the year my garlic was wiped out by aster yellows... or so I thought.

It turns out that I had a backup I didn't even know about, until this year. For several years prior to 2012, I sometimes found myself with partially developed scapes... either because I was late cutting them, or I missed a few. As I do with any weeds I think might come back to haunt me, I threw the bulging scapes into the wild area of brush & grass behind the garden, and thought no more of it.

This year I was throwing a bucket of pulled-out purslane back into that area - and peeking out from behind a bush, buried in the tall grass, I spied a scape. Searching more deeply, I found several large clumps of scapes, of 3 different varieties! Hidden deeply in the grass, they must have escaped the aster yellows. Two of the clusters have very large bulbils (some nearly 1/2" across) and I will be planting a bed with those this year. Funny thing is, because I never began my bulbil experiment, I can't identify which varieties they are until I grow them into bulbs.

To separate my garlic varieties, I grow a mix of both hardneck & softneck, along with several multiplier onions and Pearlzweibel (a miniature relative of elephant garlic). I never plant two hardnecks, or two softnecks, adjacent to each other, so that even if bulbs are pulled out & moved, it is unlikely that they will be misidentified. I too map out the garlic, not only because I might forget which is which, but because deer (or the land owner's dogs) might pull out or knock over the markers.

The softnecks did poorly this year, but they still made effective dividers... and because there were so many stem cloves this year, I will be planting those bulbils as well.

This is interesting. I'll also have some volunteers. I may not want to spend the time trying to ID them. If they come up, them they will be adapted to my climate. Or be gone, I won't bother with them.

I may just keep about 5 varieties that are good in my climate. It is hard to manage so many varieties...

Has anyone tried any alternative time plantings for bulbils? Like starting in the summer and sort of giving them a half season or growing from start to finish indoors? I'm pondering starting some porcelins in September indoors under lights and manipulating the light timer to give them a 3-4 month simulated season with increasing length days through the first 3/4's to encourage bulbing and produce rounds. Then hopefully I could replant the rounds in spring. Does this sound feasible?

Growing garlic (or bulbils) is very unpredictable since there are so many variables, particularly the light. All can be controlled.

I tried to grow cloves in container last season, just to experiment with. The cloves were planted in March, then they produced rounds in late May. Then the rounds came up again in a couple of weeks and produced round again in the hot summer. I did not continue after that.

With this, I believe the bulbils would grow in some other season. But the growth will be short and the resulting rounds would be small....

Very interesting! When you planted in March did the leaves just start dying back in late May already? So you just left them in the ground and they restarted again?

I'm most interested in doing something like this to avoid planting out small plants that are hard to identify and easily out-competed by weeds. That happened with my first attempt at porcelain bulbils.

Yeah I had exactly the same idea for some of mine. Plant in large plastic pots and if the weather goes below freezing to take them into my garage. I already have a good indoor light setup for starting my onions in Feb so I might just try bulbils in September. I'm thinking of using 6"x24" planters to grow in.

It is interesting to know how to trick the garlic to set the round or bulb. Day getting longer?

I have some tiny cloves planted this year in June. It looks like they will not send up scapes this summer, but will in fact revert to rounds, although I will have to say the jury is still out on that. A couple of years ago, I also planted some primo cloves at the end of May, but those were cold treated; they came up immediately formed normal tops with scapes and bulbed out full sized by the end of July.

Personally I suspect that it takes some sort of cold treatment to get the bloom which triggers divisions into new cloves, at least for many hard neck varieties. IOW the rounds form first and then may or may not continue growing and split into a set of cloves. Some where in there cold treatment has an effect towards the development of scapes and then cloves.I have no doubt that daylength controls some important functions in fall planted and cold treated garlic plantings, but I have some doubts that it plays the same roles in spring and summer plantings of untreated bulbils, rounds, or cloves.

I believe the cold treatment makes the garlic to sprout. Not sure about its effect on making garlic to send scapes.

It is interesting that you can grow cloves in late May and get full sized heads in two months..... If so, we do not need to plant them in fall.....

The June planted bed I have going now was never cold treated and every clove sprouted. That garlic was cured at summer temps on my west facing screen porch and stored like all my garlics at room temp in the kitchen. I know the complete history of that planting, since it has not left my hands for about three generations now. I still see no sign of scapes nor any sign of robust tops. The couple I have dug so far are still single cavity with no sign of separate clove development in that planting although even the tiniest of bulbils will shoot a scape if fall planted.

What was planted originally were definitely cloves from fully developed bulbs. There is no question that many bulbs available for spring (and/or summer) planting have been stored refrigerated, but the stock for this was not. I got 100% emergence and survival anyway. The question I have is if I will get some kind of maturation, and if so what kind.

"A couple of years ago, I also planted some primo cloves at the end of May, but those were cold treated; they came up immediately formed normal tops with scapes and bulbed out full sized by the end of July."

I do not know how this can be possible. Regular garlic season is about 9 months and you can grow full sized garlic in two months?? If so, the stronger rounds should be able to produce full sized heads in two months.

But from what I know, rounds planted in summer produced rounds again, about the same sized. There is just not enough time for the garlic plant to fully develop, make all the energy to push out the full sized head....

Here's what I know from starting garlic indoors in the past and transplanting outside:

-Garlic will germinate in room temperature soil, and germinate in warm summer soil but not as well

-Garlic rounds started indoors in the winter then transplanted in the spring can produce scapes. Mine did although they were small

-Scape growth much like onion flowering appears to be highly encouraged by warm/hot temperatures

-Bulbing seems to be highly driven by increasing day length

I was amazed at the rapid development of the late May planting that year. The bulbs averaged a shade over two inches when dug at the beginning of August. I did not expect really anything to come of it. Those were the parents of my current Music stock which produces about that same size regularly for me now from an October planting. Not necessarily huge, but very nice sized cloves to cook with. I like Music a lot.

The best I can figure was that the cloves which were supposed to have been surplus from the previous fall planting had been very carefully stored very cold, holding them dormant. IOW they had been completely vernalized. They sprouted and were up in a matter of days and then never quit, until they started to show being ready to dig. Every clove grew and every one set out a scape. The variety was Music and they were already separated and shipped bulk at reduced price from Red Gate Garlic, who often offers surplus cloves beyond what they need for their own planting at bargain prices. Varieties vary and many years there aren't any offered. I haven't purchased from them since, because they have restricted varieties and I am keeping my own seed stock these days anyway.

There are a few things about your Music growing.

Music is a porcelain garlic and the clove is very large. One mature garlic head yields about 4-5 cloves. So the cloves are large to start with. Also, I remember you fertilize garlic twice, with Milorganite, which is very high with N. Then if you provide optimal growing condition, with rich soil, lot of sun and moisture, then it is possible.

On the other hand, I have not given them anything that is close to optimal. No fertilizer, regular farm soil, and weeds are always a problem. But over-time, weed problem will be controlled and my soil will get richer....

Music has a very nice bite, but then the big cloves are a real plus. I like Music a lot.

I have a very sandy soil; so whatever I put down tends to leach out; I also have to water because of that which aggravates the leaching. I pretty much have to fertilize, but Milorganite is not the only thing. I take some pains to add plenty of organic matter and composted manure to every bed I prepare well ahead of planting and also a little lime. When I take the time to mulch properly, that helps too.

Weeds get ahead of me too. I just spent the afternoon with a weed wacker trying to find my rows and my sidewalks back. When one fertilizes one can grow some really primo weeds in a very short order...

I have a 40' x 120' lot with a 2 1/2 story house dominating it. I pretty much have very little choice except to buy my fertilizer. I am pretty careful to shop for what I get. My space is too small to grow a full kitchen garden like I grew up with; it is more or less a hobby garden in which I also have to find room for three or four lilies, about 4 varieties of Siberian iris and some dozen varieties of daylilies. I also have a small peach thicket. I still work full time, too, but at 66 I don't have the stamina I had just a decade ago.

I was reading a book and it says garlic "time to maturity" is 90 days. I think this fits what OldDutch says.

This makes sense for spring planting. The garlic and bulbils should be cold treated, then planted in spring when the soil can be worked on. This is normally March. Then with good care and fertilizing, the garlic should be ready by June or July. The head-start of fall planting probably is not needed if the plants are in good growing condition. This eliminate the problems of winter rot etc.

For regular fall planting, the garlic can be planted in October/November, not March. So the storage time is shorter. Also the garlic can get some root development. We just need to make sure that the planted cloves can safely survive the winter 4 months.

For me spring planting will be a backup. Fall planting works just fine for me, and I have more time available to do it in the fall. I will be planting tulips then anyway. I do like to know what options are available though; so this has been some valuable information.

Some varieties may be better off getting planted in late winter. I had some garlic cloves coming up in early winter. But they died back over winter. Our winter was extremely wet and that was not good for the garlic.

Also, since some of my garlic had slightly rot, I'm going to plant them in containers, probably in last winter, not this fall. So I can control any possible diseases. They probably grow to rounds anyway.

I just thought that I would add to this discussion by showing this 10 week indoor bulbil experiment that I just finished and documented on my Youtube channel. Much of my inspiration for this was based on this very thread.

I really couldn't get things to bulb as much as desired. Any opinions or comments would be greatly appreciated on what I might have done better to get them to grow or bulb better, etc. Thanks in advance!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUrgfFbafTM

Thanks for the video.

What kind of numbers and wattage light did you use?

How did the plants cure? Looks like you have something there to work on provided you get the good cure. If not, you still have a good base to work from; failure to cure properly should not deter you from making adjustments to this line of approach which otherwise is an exciting approach.
You may get better rounds by going over the top so to speak and starting to reduce daylength before harvest. Outside tops on rounds fall over and their entire tops start to dry out like onions when ready to harvest. It may be too early to be digging.

Still all in all a successful experiment even if it turns out not to be 100%. If you can cut a season off the period of growing-on especially for porcelains that will be fantastic. My bulbil growing has been plagued by getting very small cloved bulbs instead of decent rounds. Looks to me like you have gotten yourself pointed in the right direction.

Thanks OldDutch. One of the things I wanted to avoid was having them come up big enough to compete with the weeds but also get maybe an extra 50% growth vs just planting in the fall. This experiment is still going to continue.

Total wattage was 8w (LED) + 13W(CFL) x 2 + 30w(CFL) + 2 = 94w. Not like anything to break the bank. I actually used this light in my home office at night so it pretty much cost me pennies a day more than I would've used otherwise.

My main concern at this point is that I've had small bulbs before that weren't really rounds and they didn't cure well. They mostly dried up but that might've been my fault. I'm hoping that some extra knowledge that I have now will help them cure decent enough to have them ready for planting in 100 days from now or so.

MrChip, this is great video. The Porcelain type garlic did really well.

I've seen at least two sources promoting growing the entire garlic umbels, not separating the bulbils. This promote rounds, instead of small bulbs. The other option is just to plant bulbils densely, like spread small seeds.

Thanks RedSun. I didn't really know if what I had was a success or not really. They certainly had big top growth though. Did you end up with porcelain bulbils around that size before?

What I'm really leading to is an idea I have of growing two seasons worth of bulbils in one year. Start for three months indoors and then cure and replant in containers to put outside to allow cold vernalization and hopefully get something closer to something grown for 2 year after only 12 months.

Yes I've seen those sources too. I may try that as well next fall with a couple of umbels. That idea sticks closer to how nature would distribute them so I can believe it to be a good choice.

Some update on my bulbil growing. This is the beginning of the 2nd season.

Volunteer German Red (Rocambole), after one full season.

Volunteer German Red vs. Store softneck.

Killarney Red and Spanish Roja volunteer bulbils. They were not harvested last season. So all grown one full season.

Volunteer German White (Procelain), after one full season.

Volunteer German White vs Killarney Red in the back.

I have a very mild winter so far. Not sure about the impact on volunteer garlic.

Looking good...

My Sonoran bulbils didn't survive last summers hot dry weather... I think my mistake was that I should have just left them bunched up because they retained more water that way, maybe until they got the size of clove planted garlic.. I just ended up buying "seed" stock heads as relacements this season, skipping the bulbil part for now..

My Ajo Rojo barely held on... I have strongest out of that batch of bulbils growing right now... I'm hoping for garlic heads by the end of the season...

MrChip, nice video... I am following in your footsteps this year myself, so it is good to know what to expect. I haven't had much luck so far trying to grow bulbils in the ground when Fall planted (too much winter kill) so starting them indoors seems to be the best option. I will be using a 6-bulb T8 High-bay fixture as the light source; I had great results when growing onion seedlings from that set up.

My main reason for growing bulbils is not for multiplication, but to (hopefully) leave behind some of the soil-borne diseases which, over time, decrease bulb size. Artichoke varieties are particularly hard to "clean up", since they do not send up scapes. Last year was unusual, however, in that most of my artichoke varieties formed stem bulbils... I'm taking advantage of that, and attempting to grow them for fresh stock.

Redsun, you seem to have mastered bulbil culture. I hope to replicate your results for hardneck varieties in future years, again as a way to prevent the gradual accumulation of soil-borne diseases. I planted bulbils from several hardnecks last Fall, so it remains to be seen if they will survive... there is cause for optimism, since some of the bulbils I planted were from volunteers, in the field where I have been tossing over-developed scapes over the years.

To me, 2015 was my first season growing bulbils. In general I'm happy since the first year rounds and bulbs have become my 2016 main planting. But I did have to battle weeds and a lot of the planting were not harvested due to weed problems. The Porcelain bulbil planting has been disappointing. I may want to grow them in pot next season. Or grow them as what MrChip did with the Porcelain bulbils. I grow both Music and German White bulbils this year, but already planted in ground.

Here is another update on the old 2015 bulbil bed:

Volunteer German Red, from 2015. Rounds not harvested. The stem is very thick.

One of the plant accidently dug from the same bed.

The above two photos are my best looking new (2016) bed with the cloves dug from the 2015 bulbil bed, again German Red. About half of them are rounds.

I just applied some fertilizer last week, so the plants have not received any boost from the fertilizer.

From the photos, I can see the volunteer plants from the old bulbil bed are much stronger (thicker) than the regular garlic bed. So this seems early planted garlic can have some advantages over late planted garlic. With my main garlic bed, I planted in three batches, from end of October to mid November. The first batch shows quite some difference vs. the late planted garlic. My first batch already has 5 leaves and the last batch garlic just push out about 1" or so.

Just an observation. Last winter was mild. Not sure if that makes any differences.

Nice looking garlic.

Looking really good RedSun! Do you plan on mulching this year? It should really help your weed issues. I went with wood chips in some beds and some straw in others and the difference is like night and day so far at least for my regular cloves. None of my bulbils have come up yet but my cloves just peaked above the ground around 14 days ago and are mostly around 4" or less since we've had temps just hovering around freezing lately.

The above is newly dug bed for garlic. Weed is a constant battle. With my wet spring, I do not plan to mulch the bed until it gets warm, like late June or so. I need to pull the weeds anyway. The big weed issue is Star of Jerusalem. I do not think mulching even works with this weed. I would like weeds than rotting.

Just like to update for the 2017 season. This is the 3rd year of the above bulbil stock building. This is a Rocambole variety.

Above on 6/3/2017. Almost ready.

On 6/20/2017.

Since this variety has adapted my climate well, I'll continue to build it. Hope they will get bigger and bigger.