Kitchen Garden Forum

How much cold does garlic need?

Because here in the South-East I don't think we even had 2 weeks of frost this winter.
Is this enough?

It is my first year growing garlic and it would be so nice to have a good harvest.

Thank you
amo

We rarely get frosts here, but as long as I plant my garlic early it seems to bulb up nicely. I usually plant two lots, one in November and another lot at the beginning of January

DOES it really need frost? Because I thought the best English garlic is grown on the Isle of Wight and I can imagine that they will have many almost frost-free winters. We did not have very much frost last winter and it grew very well (Thermidrome and Purple Wight).

I grew garlic 20 years ago. The plants still appear where they are not wanted... depite harsh winters or warm winters.

It's now a weed in our garden and VERY hardy:-(((((((

They do not necesarily need frost, just a cold spell.

They'll still bulb up without the cold/frost, but they don't divide. A couple of years ago we had a very mild winter and I had around 40 huge cloves of garlic; one from each plant.

Where i live the wisdom is that garlic needs a period of 1-2 months when temperatures are 0-10c for its dormant period.
The other tip is to take in bonfire ashes into the ground before planting in Autumn and again in spring to help deter onion eel worm/maggots.

Hi

Thank you for all the answers.

Then I should be allright, I planted the garlic back in November. At least the green shoots look good! I am worrying for nothing!

Thanks again

amo

Hi Amo,
I don't know about Ashford but night here we had to lowest temperature of the Winter. Three min/max thermometers recorded 20F which is 12 degrees of frost.
It caused my Onion and Shallot seedlings to go absolutely flat but most of them had started to recover by noon but I suspect I have lost a fair proportion of them. In retrospect I feel that I should have covered them with fleece. I missed the frost warning.
With regards to your Garlic I think you are over worrying a bit and I feel that if they have been there since November they will have had sufficient
cold weather come the end of the winter.
I can only speak for this neck of the woods but there have been quite prolonged periods where although we have not had a frost we have been down to 36F. I am 500ft up and right on the mid-Wales
border so considerably further north that you.
I'm sure everything will be fine and you will have a bumper crop.
You will have to go some way to beat Angi's wonderful crop of last year. (somewhere back in the text)
JB.
PS. Have searched for the Photo's without success but I really would like to see them again Angi.

I guess I'm too late to plant garlic now?
I found the garlic farm website and would love to grow some, but what am I to do with all the garlic which will no doubt be produced from 10 bulbs!

I would say yes, Lynne, although you can apparently leave them in the ground for another year and they'll grow bigger and divide. But planting this late you're likely to get single large cloves.
Do you have to buy 10 bulbs at once? Usually you can buy smaller numbers than that.

check here:
http://thegarlicfarm.co.uk/garlicgrow.asp

Or go to Dobies and just buy 2 bulbs.

http://www.dobies.co.uk/pd_174123_Garli ... _bulbs.htm

according to the garlic farm website. garlic needs about 2 weeks at 0-4c.

Garden centres still may have stocks of garlic. Might be worth growing. Bulbs won't be huge but should get a tasty enough vampire deterrent.