Kitchen Garden Forum

I'm a new garlic grower and know it needs a period do exposure to cold. I don,t have any spare planting space just yet. Can I sow the cloves in modules in my mini plastic greenhouse now and plant them out in later autumn when I've got some cleared growing space?

I don't see why not Primrose, it seems to work for onions.

I'm off to plant some Thermidrome later on today, but I've got a bed all ready for them luckily.

Can I use ordinary garlic cloves bought from the supermarket as I've been to two garden centres and neither have any in stock?

Yes, but they are likely to be from a hotter country like Spain, so may not do as well as a UK variety.

Primrose wrote:I'm a new garlic grower and know it needs a period do exposure to cold. I don,t have any spare planting space just yet. Can I sow the cloves in modules in my mini plastic greenhouse now and plant them out in later autumn when I've got some cleared growing space?

To be honest I'd hang on to them and plant them later in autumn straight in the ground.

Agree - this Indian Summer is producing crops so still a while to get them in so they get their cold snap! Patience! I've grown supermarket ones before quite successfully - but planting from this years crop this year as they have been so lovely! (Just look at country of origin if you buy any - IOW have been sneaking into the market quite extensively!)

Westi

Agree - this Indian Summer is producing crops so still a while to get them in so they get their cold snap! Patience! I've grown supermarket ones before quite successfully - but planting from this years crop this year as they have been so lovely! (Just look at country of origin if you buy any - IOW have been sneaking into the market quite extensively!)

Westi

Whoops! Said there has been another post to this topic - it's mine!

Westi

So good you wrote in twice Westi!

I didn't get to plant any last year due to work getting in the way followed by wet, wet and wet but I hadn't managed to entirely clear the previous years crop so I had lots of 'volunteers' come up. They've produced me some not very large but very tasty garlic. They didn't start to make an appearance until about January so don't panic yet on the planting.

I usually plant mine in January but couldn't this year as everything was under snow so I put them in pots in the cold frame and got them in the ground eventually, very late when the snow had melted, and they have done fine, although some of them haven't divided. They were ready late June early July same as usual.

I don't see that there's any need to start off cloves in modules. I wouldn't be thinking about planting until the end of October or into November, or even in mid to late winter, for the difference it makes.

I plant the bulk of my garlic straight into the ground but always put some into modules (short roottrainers, actually) in the cold greenhouse which I then transplant into the garden, rather than allotment, in spring. And I find there is little if any difference in either their vigour or the time they are ready to harvest.

Primrose wrote:Can I use ordinary garlic cloves bought from the supermarket

Can I share just one seasons experience but mostly to do with buying-in some decent garlic designed to grow in UK conditions. Last years purchase of two types of garlic seemed expensive at the time particularly when you include the postage. This year even after some failures due to rot I have a lot of garlic, even after sowing three eight foot rows i'm thinking to sow another two rows.

Can you put it in the alongside whatever you have considering you won't get much top-growth until next year, your autumn sown garlic is about putting roots down and a tiny bit of top growth.

I could never buy decent garlic this far west so having lot's of it in stock is heaven for an old-garlic-head. I grew two types, hard-neck and soft neck. I haven't a clue which I favour though the soft-neck cloves are mostly nice and fat whereas the hard-neck cloves are mostly smaller like the ones I always get from the Co-op. I think they are always hard-neck type.