Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post

Soilsniffer · August 1, 2007

I busted the big clove this morning. Curiosity.

After >2 weeks of storage/curing, it weighed 229g, exactly a half pound.

Peeled off I think five skin layers, exposing the main cloves, and two tiny mutants that were under the 2d or 3d layer:

Separated into cloves. Ended up with five monsters and five regular sized, plus the two mutants. The five monsters weighed in at: 43g, 40g, 27g, 24g, and 21g.

Finally, the normal cloves: 7g, 6g, 4g, 4g, 4g, and the two mutants, 1g each:

Henry: No, the garlic was NOT dry. The inner layers were quite moist, and there was a little bit of paper deep inside beginning to liquify. I'll definitely do as you suggest and open up the layers a bit for the remaining heads.

I plan on using just one clove (flavor test), and planting all the rest. I hope to keep good enough records to remember where each clove was buried, and see next year if larger cloves tend to produce larger heads.

We are all conditioned to plant the largest cloves ... but each clove in a head is genetically identical; I'm thinking ... uhhhh, 'size doesn't matter'. I'll experiment with these cloves (and the remaining heads) for this fall's crop.

Jay

August 1, 2007	#7
Soilsniffer Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: z7, Richmond VA Posts: 187	I busted the big clove this morning. Curiosity. After >2 weeks of storage/curing, it weighed 229g, exactly a half pound. Peeled off I think five skin layers, exposing the main cloves, and two tiny mutants that were under the 2d or 3d layer: Separated into cloves. Ended up with five monsters and five regular sized, plus the two mutants. The five monsters weighed in at: 43g, 40g, 27g, 24g, and 21g. Finally, the normal cloves: 7g, 6g, 4g, 4g, 4g, and the two mutants, 1g each: Henry: No, the garlic was NOT dry. The inner layers were quite moist, and there was a little bit of paper deep inside beginning to liquify. I'll definitely do as you suggest and open up the layers a bit for the remaining heads. I plan on using just one clove (flavor test), and planting all the rest. I hope to keep good enough records to remember where each clove was buried, and see next year if larger cloves tend to produce larger heads. We are all conditioned to plant the largest cloves ... but each clove in a head is genetically identical; I'm thinking ... uhhhh, 'size doesn't matter'. I'll experiment with these cloves (and the remaining heads) for this fall's crop. Jay __________________ Identifying garlic is done mostly by consensus. Many are like trying to identify the difference between twins.