Kitchen Garden Forum

Well, I'm wound up... 5 garlic plants in the garden have been eaten... I dont know what's done it, but yesterday I had 5 healthy plants, today, hollow shells where the cloves were in the ground... So I'm thinking of trying something new

Has anyone grown garlic in an unheated greenhouse? Or on a windowsill in the house? I have 2 cloves just sprouting, so i'm thinking of growing one on each

I'll let you know how it goes

'Allo 'Allo

Has the snail population in your garden decreased
Has there been an overnight smell of heavily scented cooking such as onion soup or moules mariniere
Do your neighbours have any visitors staying who talk like Officer Crabtree


If the answer to all the above is no then I regret I am unable to throw any light on your missing garlic

Actually eaten the whole cloves & just left the stems?? How bizarre! Got foxes, maybe they were playing?

Westi

Has your child been playing in the garden?

Actually pa, I have noticed a drop in snails lol

westi, whole cloves stems and everything. But not dug up. in fact, the skins of the cloves were left behind. Really odd.

Plum - Yes she had, but she prefers to put stuff in the garden than pull it out. I've even got some photos to prove it
I was off my feet, and asked my wife to plant out the last of the courgettes and this is the picture I got back


and then a few weeks ago I realised why she's growing so quick... Like a plant, she grows when watered

Beautiful wee Girl Dan Numbers, gardener in the making!

Mini hurricane in the garden sucked them right out of their skins! I'd be looking for 2 legged culprits for that degree of sophistication!

Westi

Whilst putting the world right, in our corner of the Rugby Bar. I mentioned the cost of garlic bulbs. To be told by one member, he only uses what is on sale in his local supermarket veg isle, and has had no problems, though he admits some are on the small side, though as he points out, he chops them up anyway. Anyone else been down this road . ?

Dan ? is this problem with your garlic to do with white-rot ?

If you leave a garlic plant that has white-rot in the ground long enough you will end up with just the stalk and the paper-like covers of the cloves.

Has anyone grown store-bought garlic yet ?

These are four (And a bit) I pulled yesterday, looking ok but the previous four were rotten. Im leaving others in the ground until the greenery is all brown, OK ?

westi you were right. The culprit had 2 legs, 2 wings and beady little eyes. Yup, a Crow.

As for shop galic, that's how I grow garlic. Just make sure its "local" garlic. For me, there's no point growing garlic from Spain as an example

We planted Morrison's best garlic 2 years ago ,we got a good crop but most small this year I planted some cloves we had not used I've just pulled them up still small but plenty of them

Are the cloves you grew a similar size to ones you planted ?

When I plant garlic from the previous years harvest I always pick the fattest cloves though Im not sure its important. This spring I planted garlic in two different beds, both beds have nice soil though still on the sticky side, only four plants and only from one bed did I get white rot. This means I now have two beds with the prospect of producing white rot.

dan3008 wrote:Has anyone grown garlic in an unheated greenhouse? Or on a windowsill in the house? I have 2 cloves just sprouting, so i'm thinking of growing one on each

Hi Dan,

When I had the allotment, I grew garlic in the polytunnel.
Now that I am gardening at home, I planted the cloves in the unheated greenhouse last autumn. They were ready for lifting in June, just in time for the peppers to take their place.

I spent an hour this morning tidying up our garlic bulbs (Provence Wight and Valledelado Wight) which I harvested about 10 days ago by snipping off the roots, pulling off the dirty outside leaves and cutting off much of the stem. And I was amazed at the size and quality of this year's crop! Although the leaves were covered in rust, not one bulb had bolted and are all more than golf ball size. They are now in the greenhouse, suspended upside down on the wooden slats to dry off completely before going to be stored in the garage.
Last year's crop lasted until about May before they sprouted.

Monica, you almost answered my next posting question on garlic, my garlic always looks so scruffy compared to store-bought garlic.

I just shake of the soil and hang
them up in my blokes-cave, they slowly loose more soil onto the floor and after a few weeks of coping with the tatty/scruffy looking bundles I open all the garlic heads and prise open releasing all the cloves for storage in baskets.

The reason I do this is that previously I noticed that the odd rotting clove would create rot in the adjoining cloves eventually rotting the whole head in one example from my first harvest three/four years ago.

Garlic cloves stored like this last until about a month before the new seasons harvest in the following year and is much tidier though I wouldn't say that the man-cave is tidy. Ever.

Ricard with an H wrote:I just shake of the soil and hang them up in my blokes-cave
...
I wouldn't say that the man-cave is tidy. Ever.

Haha, I'm sorry Ricard, I'm loving the idea of hanging garlic in the man-cave, I suppose it stops batman moving in and taking over?

I shouldnt laugh. My shed is my man-cave, and I have all my gardening stuff in there... and a battery radio...