I am out of garlic cloves but I still have some daturas, cannas and a few onions. First come, first serve. I only send plants and seeds out Monday-Wednesday because I do not want them stuck in the post office limbo during weekends. When you receive your seeds/plants please go to Review and Rating and give me feedback on anything that will improve my trading skills or e-mail it to me directly. I am asking for this because I am a newbie and would appreciate anything you can impart to me about the aspects of trading (shipping, packaging, and other trading unwritten rules). Thank you all for your interest. I have a number of trades I need to send away today and tomorrow so I need to get off the computer. LOL.

Stem cloves are a common occurrence in "soft neck" garlic varieties, in response to less-than-ideal growing conditions. Because of this, the presence of stem cloves usually signals a smaller than normal bulb. Stem cloves were widespread in my Artichoke garlic varieties during very wet years... garlic does not like waterlogged soil. A raised bed can improve soil conditions & reduce the likelihood of stem cloves. With a raised bed, I had only one plant out of 150 form stem cloves this year. If you get stem cloves, they are worth planting, since that may be a way of shedding diseases & organisms which can accumulate in the ground bulbs & be passed on.

Zabby, The whole cloves (Spice World) peeled garlic that I buy in 3 lb containers aren't packed in anything. The minced garlic (I don't buy anymore) is packed in olive oil. Garlic remains the only thing that I have been unable to ferment by itself. Really convinced me just how good its anti-bacterial qualities are. Salsa...... Subbing chopped parsley leaves for the cilanto really helped for me. Yesterday batch #1 4 cups tomatoes 4 cups peaches 1 1/2 cups sweet onion 1 1/2 cups green bell pepper 1 Biker Billy jalapeño 2 Bhut Jolokia peppers (very hot) 7 garlic cloves 2 tsp cumin seeds 2 tsp fresh ground black pepper 1/8 cup canning salt 1/8 cup parsley 1/2 cup cider vinegar 1/2 cup lemon juice 15 oz can tomato sauce 12 oz can tomato paste BWB for 15 min = 6 pints Batch #2 8 cups tomatoes 4 cups peaches 2 1/4 cups green bell pepper 2 tbs manzano pepper powder (hot) 10 garlic cloves 3 1/4 cups sweet onions 1 tbs cumin seeds 1 tbs fresh ground black pepper 3/16 cup canning salt 3 tbs parsley 1/2 cup cider vinegar 1 cup lemon juice 15 oz can tomato sauce 12 oz can tomato paste BWB for 15 min = 7 pints and aprox 2 for the fridge to be frozen today. I forgot the tomatillos and will just chop them into the 2 or so pints that I'm going to freeze. Or I might pressure process them. The peach skin didn't seem to hurt a thing. The peaches were a bit hard, but I liked the flavor and they sure diced nicely in my new onion dicer. Tomatoes are the only thing that I have to dice by hand and they took forever as I am so stinking slow at things like that. Thanks again, Annie!! jt

Peter, I left a few garlic plants alone and let them grow scapes and remain in the ground until all top growth died. I wanted the the bulbils to grow as long as possible. The below ground bulbs looked very similar to the picture above when harvested. I think they were lifted in September. I harvested the "normal" ones in July. I planted some of the "old" cloves for next years crop since they looked to be healthy and of good size. I was surprised at the large size of the cloves since I figured leaving the scape on would yield a smaller bulb. Perhaps if I harvested plants with scapes left uncut when about half the leaves had died back the bulb would have been small...I don't know. But by time everything had died back on the scaped plants, the bulbs and cloves were good size: falling apart, but good sized. But they were not anything I'd want to store. I also did not enjoy cleaning all the soil off ones I wanted to use in the kitchen. Anyway, the subsequent bulbil growing was a fun experiment. As expected, many of the plants yielded small rounds. I was surprised to see some develop into tiny little miniature bulbs with super mini cloves. These minis were very cute, but kinda useless. It was an interesting grow out, but not something I plan to do regularly. So, long story short....that is why I know what bulbs left in the ground far too long look like :)