Quote:
Originally Posted by tjg911
actually it is the opposite, cutting the scape allows for better bulb growth and storage. growing bulbils is a waste of time imo plant garlic using your stock choosing the largest cloves from the largest bulbs. maybe it works the opposite on the other side of the equator, i mean your seasons are opposite... just kidding. 
tom |
Hello Tom
I grow garlic to eat and unlike you lucky North Americans, there is a very limited selection of hardneck garlic varieties for sale commercially in NZ
. Koanga, one of our oldest heirloom seed companies, only sells one hardneck!
I've acquired all my hardneck stock as gifts/trades from other gardeners and/or as bulbs I've bought for consumption (some of which may have been imported from the US!).
With so few cloves in hardneck bulbs, I want to eat them all and to ensure that I don't lose them, growing on the bulbils has been an inexpensive way to increase my stock.
When I first started growing garlic, I trawled the web for information and this
article piqued my interest in growing bulbils. They have found that the size and vigour of the bulbs have been improved when grown from bulbils.
I've also read in more than one article/blog that some growers find that their hardneck bulbs store longer in that they don't sprout so quickly so I think that the juries still out on the question of storage ability.
However, this year I'll be able to judge for myself as I intend cutting some of my scapes, I've held off for all this time and want to taste them instead of just reading about how yummy they are
