Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Potty Plotty Lotty on February 23, 2020, 08:59

Title: Growing garlic later in the year
Post by: Potty Plotty Lotty on February 23, 2020, 08:59

An interesting read here and something I should consider as I use copious garlic in cooking.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/feb/23/james-wong-on-gardens-plant-garlic-late-for-big-cloves-spring-march-april

Title: Re: Growing garlic later in the year
Post by: jambop on February 23, 2020, 09:36

I did not read that article but will say that I ,here in France, plant out my garlic in November. We get mild winters but I do not think that makes any real difference. The make a little growth over the first three months then in Feb really take off when the warmer spring weather starts. I harvest them about the start of May which then frees up a bit of ground for another crop. For me then the real advantage of growing over the winter and early spring is the ground is free for a summer crop... maybe beans or peppers.

Title: Re: Growing garlic later in the year
Post by: New shoot on February 23, 2020, 09:50

I read the article and it is quite an interesting idea.  I'm thinking of trying it for eating fresh and preserving  :)

He mentions roasted garlic.  I roasted my remaining shed stored crop a few weeks ago, as it was starting to sprout.  The pulp gets packed into an ice-cube tray, frozen, then bagged up. I like the thought of a summer batch of this, as it is amazing for curries, cheese sauces and soups.  I should mention I have a couple of ice-cube trays dedicated to freezing herbs and stuff like the garlic.  Don't use your normal ice-cube tray unless you enjoy odd tasting drinks  :lol:

Title: Re: Growing garlic later in the year
Post by: TonyB. on February 23, 2020, 16:45

Interesting to say the least.

I did not know the science behind planting it in the cold just that you had to do it because they needed cold. Last year was my first full year on an allotment, this gave me space to grow garlic for the first time. Probably because of the nice sandy soil mine were much bigger than the supermarket  ones.

The article raised a different question for me: could I put the garlic bulb in the fridge for a month then plant it out?

Title: Re: Growing garlic later in the year
Post by: Wellington on February 24, 2020, 10:55

I’ve grown garlic this way (on purpose, too!) and it works well if you want a lot in one go. I do a lot of cooking large batches of things for the freezer, and this makes preparing it much less tedious. I don’t recall if I tried to store any, but my hunch is it wouldn’t store well, unprocessed. I am currently using ready crushed garlic either frozen, or preserved in vinegar at the moment, and I’m sure it could be preserved as either of those fairly easily. As I haven’t actually planted my garlic I’ll probably do it again this year.  If I’ve got a few spare cloves, I’ll put them in the fridge to see what happens.