Garlic beds

Comment

Comment by Megan on August 21, 2011 at 10:12am

I only used my bulbils for planting, too fiddly to eat :)) Did taste them to check for flavour - there was quite a variation in strength from very mild and sweet to hot & spicy. Until I started garlic growing last year I had no idea that there are not only soft & hardneck garlic, let alone numerous varieties within those two groups until I started exploring this garlic site that Hester put me onto. Here are a few links here; here & here about garlic bulbils. In essence, the first year that they're planted will yield rounds the size of a normal clove and they can be eaten or replanted the following year to grow into a regular bulb. Each hardneck bulb will produce a scape containing 20 - 100 bulbils depending on the variety which gives you a huge planting stock. If you don't allow the bulbil to form, you can harvest the scape and use it in stir fries (it's really delicious, like a very thin garlic flavoured crunchy asparagus stalk).

I planted some broadbeans that Jane Maarie sent me directly into the ground but they haven't come up yet, perhaps they're not as hardy as they're reputed to be. Will have to start some more indoors! Got lots of other seedlings underway, kale & beans from Kali, Robyn's pean seeds, your Mangere Pole & Dalmation beans, cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts & lettuces. Lots of pricking out to do!

 

Comment by josephal on August 19, 2011 at 7:15pm

Gardens good, broadbeans coming along nice all the my fruit trees are starting to burst forth buds. Planted alot of those hardneck garlic you gave me a last month and shared the rest at the horticulture society. I got lots of questions I couldnt answer from people at horti! The cloves were quite small, how do you eat them??

Comment by Megan on August 19, 2011 at 3:23pm

hello Joe, I'm pretty sure that they'll be ok, last year was the first time I'd grown garlic and they survived numerous frosts and snowfalls. This year I had to transplant over 100 cloves from the garden at home to this garden and the top 15 -20cm of soil was frozen and touch wood, all the transplants are growing well. Apparently hardneck garlic does better in cold climates & I have a mixture of both hard & softneck varieties.  How's your garden growing?

Comment by josephal on August 18, 2011 at 11:09am

are they going ton survive that megan?