Where do you buy your seed garlic?

[greenthumbomaha]

Originally Posted by greenthumbomaha

When I break up my german extra hardy for planting next week I can send you a few cloves to get you started. PM me your address.


- Lisa

MM-

Still waiting for the right weather and an opening for the landscaper coming to till. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon if the most moisture we get tonight is sprinkles.

- Lisa

[pmcgrady]

Originally Posted by bower

Nice looking seed bulbs! Looks like you may get about 200 head from those, if so he would get 100 bulbs for the $93, close to a buck a bulb or $5 a pound at 5 bulbs per lb. Don't know how that compares with market prices in your area.

You're going to have a great bunch of seed after this year though!!

I like your math! Yeah they are super nice bulbs, some of the best looking I've seen.

Edit: just got 200 + more cloves in then the 30mph winds kicked in, kinda makes it hard laying landscape fabric and mulching. I got 3 of the 4 Filaree Farms varieties in and here's an interesting observation:
Montana Zemo 33 cloves per pound
Idaho Silver 117 cloves per pound (plantable) + 15 or so too small
Chesnok Red 75 cloves per pound

[MissMoustache]

Originally Posted by greenthumbomaha

MM-

Still waiting for the right weather and an opening for the landscaper coming to till. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon if the most moisture we get tonight is sprinkles.

- Lisa

Thank you! I'm working on a party/sale at work this weekend and haven't finished planting either. I got one variety in...and then it's been too wet (and too dark to see) since.

[bower]

Originally Posted by pmcgrady

I like your math! Yeah they are super nice bulbs, some of the best looking I've seen.

Edit: just got 200 + more cloves in then the 30mph winds kicked in, kinda makes it hard laying landscape fabric and mulching. I got 3 of the 4 Filaree Farms varieties in and here's an interesting observation:
Montana Zemo 33 cloves per pound
Idaho Silver 117 cloves per pound (plantable) + 15 or so too small
Chesnok Red 75 cloves per pound

Is Montana Zemo a porcelain?
They usually have the least cloves. Great garlics but you have to keep more back to plant.


I noticed in your pic that Chesnok Red took six bulbs to make a lb vs 5 for others. Chesnok and Persian Star (both purple stripes) are not the biggest bulbs for us, but they are great keepers and mighty fine flavor raw or cooked. YMMV, you have a much longer growing season!

[pmcgrady]

Not sure what it is... Huge cloves, maybe 7 cloves per bulb, brown wrappers... I should have kept one and ate it.


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[pmcgrady]

[QUOTE=pmcgrady;717530]Not sure what it is... Huge cloves, maybe 7 cloves per bulb, brown wrappers... I should have kept one and ate it.

Not to change the subject...
When planting garlic today, I remembered I planted some ginger and left it unattended, it was grown up in foxtail... But I did find a few!




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[greenthumbomaha]

Originally Posted by greenthumbomaha

MM-

Still waiting for the right weather and an opening for the landscaper coming to till. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon if the most moisture we get tonight is sprinkles.

- Lisa

I started to plant yesterday. I have one more section left, almost 200 cloves total. Monday afternoon was tilling day. The landscaper came with a 2 tine Troy Built tiller, and he had to till holding the wheels up in the air. It was running away from him. At most he was able to till 4 inches down in virgin heavy clay. I am disappointed but it is too late to start anew.



I pushed back the clay of each weed fabric square with a trowel and added a pinch of bone meal and a handful of bagged worm castings. The clove was planted in the clay / casting mixture and I added a pinch of balanced granular fertilizer on top of the clay after I smoshed it around. I added a lite cover of chopped leaves but it was mostly blown away by the next day.



Any ideas what I can do to keep the garlic from frost heaving? I usually plant 8 inches deep and get good results. I'm not sure if straw would do the job and I'd like to avoid purchasing / hauling it in the quantity I would need. I was thinking of adding a handful of a bagged garden soil (like miracle grow or stay green - not my favorite approach) on top to build up the amount of soils on top. Good/bad? Other ideas?


- Lisa

[Zeedman]

A thick layer of hay would work. 4-6" is probably best (keep in mind it will compact under the snow) but you could get away with 2-3". It stabilizes the soil temperature, minimizing the freeze/thaw cycles that cause frost heave. Any other mulch material would do as well. OR... you could rake soil over the bed from the surrounding area.

[Father'sDaughter]

I add about 6" of chopped leaves several weeks after planting/closer to snow fall which will keep it in place until the spring when I thin it down to a couple of inches. It takes a while for the ground to freeze so there's no immediate threat of heaving.

I gave up on straw because of the cost and the fact that even the reported "seed free" stuff would start sprouting like crazy every spring.

[greenthumbomaha]

Amen to the seeds and cost of straw/hay if you don't produce it on site. Hard to find it free from herbicides and pesticides too.

Above Zeedman mentioned other mulch which I am interested in hearing more about. Last year I started to use bagged pine bark mulch over each square but ended up scooping it off and replacing with the dreaded seeded straw.

Cutting those squares was horrible and time consuming. (I use 5 mil Dewitt Pro which has felt bond on the back, and had the 6 foot width on hand) I have 4 sections like the ones pictured. I love garlic but need a more streamlined method.

I won't have enough leaves for a thick cover on all the sections. The predominant tree species in this area is Ash, and people are treating for Emerald Ash Borer like mad even though the treatment kills the tree. I really don't want to cruise the neighborhood picking up bags of chemically treated leaves. The free leaf glory days are over.

[PureHarvest]

Not sure how rural you are, or hauling ability, but look for cow hay or “junk” hay.
The large round bale kind. Bales are about 4’ wide. You can (with a helper) roll a bale out and you have an instant mat of organic material to buffer bare soil and keep weeds down.
Around here it’s free to 25 bucks per bale.
The are big and heavy but if you can get delivery it is effective. Of course you could just get small square bales, but the cost would add up, plus you lose the continuous mat effect that a large bale provides.
I plan in doing all 3 of my tunnels with large round bale junk hay (was sudex hay, nice and coarse and stemmy) and perhaps pinning down the sections occasionally with landscape pins.

[Raiquee]

Zeedman,

if you ever run into that situation again i'm not sure how far you are from West Bend, but PM me here and I can till up a flat and solve that issue for you. We got 4 acres on our farm, and are buying some acreage up north somewhere next spring. You should PM me for my number so you have it just in case.

That's so sad, from one seed collector to another.

[bower]

I agree, Zeedman! Hope you have better luck with land in the future, and I'm glad to hear you were able to replace those varieties.


@pmcgrady, ginger you lucky! It might be worth greenhouse space for me to have some really fresh ginger like that out of the ground. Great company for garlic in the kitchen.

[Zeedman]

Raiquee, thank you for the offer. It is appreciated, and I may yet take you up on it. As it happens, my DIL is from West Bend; I live in Winnebago County.


My rural garden is just outside of Omro on another friend's land, and is the only one large enough to accommodate large plantings. The ground was fallow all summer, and cultivated several times to keep weeds from seeding. It remains to be seen whether I'll be able to plant garlic there. The high end was just beginning to dry out, and I've tilled it lightly to expedite drying; but was not yet dry enough to cultivate to the depth necessary. If rain were not expected, I probably could have planted Saturday, so I'm really hoping we only get the "spotty showers" that have been forecast. If the rain holds off until Friday afternoon, I'll throw plastic over the row to keep it dry.


There are 17 varieties ready to plant.

[Raiquee]

How much space do you need? I’m not 100% sure I could get a new space tilled and amended in time (we are on sand) but maybe it would fit in my main garden.