Gardening with Gary




Gardening Advice from an Expert

Growing Your Own Garlic

Buy the bulbs anytime you see good, full and thick ones available. Do not get any that are soft or dried. When the frost date is reached in your gardening zone, separate the bulbs into cloves, as you would when prepping them for cooking.

Plant them 6-8" apart in rows in a well-drained and worked garden bed, to a depth of 4-5". Cover with fine soil and water in well. They do not do very well in heavy, clay soil, as I had in Toledo.

The sprouts will start to emerge in about 14 days. When they have reached a height of 3", start a fertilizer program. Rapid Grow, Peters, Scotts or Miracle-Gro are good products made especially for vegetable gardening. Read the directions and follow carefully.

Maintain feeding and watering throughout the growing season, and remove any weeds that pop up in the area.

Chumly wrote~
I live in Benicia, CA. and my Garlic is already budding. It's from Gilroy on its 3rd year, Warm weather or too much phosphorus?

A. It could be warm weather but I do not suspect the soil phosphorus. What is the problem as this is almost May and garlic should be sprouting to grow the season? Are you growing it for consumption? Why grow it for three years, or are you using it as an ornamental? Sprouting now is normal so do not be alarmed.

Chumly adds~
It's the 3rd year from the original bulbs that I purchased in Gilroy. What is happening that this bed of garlic was planted in Nov. '02. The first of three beds and it is beginning to bloom. Fertilizer used in my compost was 0-16-20 and I suspect that is the source or cause of the early bloom. The heads are bigger than a baseball and foliage is three feet tall. They has since been pulled to cure. Is there a cycle to how many years you can grow from a single source? And yes they are for consumption!

Thank you for the additional explanations. Now I see that you are referring to flowering not sprouting as said before. Yes, the high P will lead to early flowering. The third number, Potassium, is beneficial for root growth and the first number, Nitrogen, for green foliage. You need both these latter in good proportions to produce first the foliage and then build up the bulbs. Knocking down the tops forces bulb growth and matures the bulbs.

As to length of life cycle of a garlic bulb head, I would refer to the UC Davis publication. I tried to get you a good source, so try these websites below. The Acrobat one is super, but is unable to be reprinted:

http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/

http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:_ubjR_KMuBAC:vric.ucdavis.edu/veginfo/commodity/garlic/growgarlic.pdf+gilroy+garlic+growing+information&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

If you can read Acrobat files, go to this website which is full of growing tips:
vric.ucdavis.edu/veginfo/commodity/ garlic/growgarlic.pdf