Garlic

24th May

9th May

Was reading Klaus Laitenberger book "Vegetables for the Irish Garden" and the section
on growing Garlic.
He says that garlic needs a cold spell after planting out in order for the bulbs to split into cloves.
Otherwise all you get is one complete bulb. I started the Garlic off in the greenhouse so hopefully I
will not experience this problem. Will update.




12th April 

Garlic is doing well since it was planted out into the allotment beds.

Elephant Garlic 









3rd February

Garlic really taking off now. I'm going to leave it as long as possible in the Greenhouse. Temperatures durning the day have varied between 10 and 15 degrees which is a few degrees warmer than outside. They are also protected from the frosts.








15th January
 
Only planted the Garlic 5 Days ago in pots in the Greenhouse and the Illico has started to come up already.


It should be ready to plant out in another 2 weeks.

It's now January and I am late in planting my Garlic. I have read that ideally it should be planted on the shortest day of the year in December. I did not have any of my beds ready so I have decided to start each clove off in the greenhouse in pots of compost first. I have ordered 4 types from Suttons and am also going to try one shop bought organic variety. This is not recommended as it may not be suitable to our climate (it's a spanish variety) and is not disease resistant. We will see how it does.


Garlic is not cheap. It cost me over 20 euros for the 10 bulbs. All been well I will be able to save some cloves from this batch after they mature to sow again next year. I got about 90 plants all in all so if they grow well we should have no problem with cloves for next year.

I have manured the bed that they are going to go into about 3 weeks ago. I keep reading that its not recommended to plant in recently manured soil I guess because the fresh manure can cause problems with the bulbs. However the manure I added was well rotten and it will be at least another month before I transplant the cloves from the pots into the bed so we will keep their progress updated.


These are the varietys that I have planted.
Sultop
Purple Wight
Solent Wight
Illico
Jolimont
Cheap Shop Bought Variety

I will update the blog with progress and photos as the year progresses.