[Growster...]

Our garlic has stuck in spring onion mode for three weeks now, and there are no bulbs forming.

They have been watered and fed, but are falling over now, so it's either the compost heap, or just maybe, some sort of use being skinned and used in salads.

Has anyone else tried to use them this way, or are there any other ideas please?

[AnnieB]

Last year mine were much the same. The bulb was small and I simply put any useful ones in a liquidiser with oil and zapped the lot, made good easy garlic.

The stems I chopped as per spring onions and added to stir fry's.

This years crop looks about half the same and half of some significant size.

[Agatha]

I had a few tiny ones last year & just used to pop the whole bulb in to whatever I was cooking, instead of crushing/chopping a clove. 

I've had a few good bulbs this year, but some of my Thermidore are very strange. They have a reasonable sized bulb at the base and what looks like a smaller bulb immediately above it - anyone know what causes this and is the mini-bulb edible?  Also, some of the bulbs are one solid piece of garlic instead of individual cloves.

[New shoot]

Also, some of the bulbs are one solid piece of garlic instead of individual cloves.

That is caused when garlic doesn't get enough cold weather at the start of its growing season. When did you plant it?

Not sure what the mini bulbs are about, but you can eat garlic leaves and flower stalks, so can't see why the mini bulbs wouldn't be edible 

[Agatha]

Can't remember exactly, but sometime before Christmas - if it didn't find January & February this year cold enough, I'll have to move to the Antarctic to keep it happy!  Really weird as only 1/4 of the bulbs are like it and none of the other two varieties I planted - maybe one of the veg-patch voles has installed a woodburner in his burrow, so it's raising the temperature!

[New shoot]

That is odd.  It is usually the spring planted stuff that fails to split into cloves    Maybe your voles do have a woodburner down there 

It has been an odd year for garlic. My autumn planted stuff grew well and was going great guns, then some just rotted through the bulb and died this spring    What I have harvested, which was just a cheap bag of bulbs from work labelled 'Garlic' are small, but OK.  The rest are still growing and don't look like stopping any time soon 

[gavinjconway]

Pulled some red and white garlic today... best crop I've ever grown..  Still have more that is green and still growing..  Planted on 30 Sept last year.

[Steveharford]

Pulled up my thermidrome today as they were looking yellow and spindly. Sure enough the bulbs were pathetic as indicated by the stems. These were planted in the autumn at the same time as, and in the next row to, my Albigensian which are really good with some lovely big bulbs. It doesn't make sense but then neither does the fact that my saved French garlic ( which I replant each year) has produced beautiful big bulbs in one row, then average ones next to it, then less than average size next to that. The mind boggles.

[Mum2mj]

Mine are they same, autumn planted, whole small bulbs that haven't split with a couple of 'mini pea sizes bulbs a bit higher up the stem? Haven't a clue as to the variety though

[Growster...]

Interesting, and sorry to hear that others are in the same situation.

I planted some Wilkos garlic last autumn, that just died away over the winter with no sign of ever trying, so I planted some 'Christo' garlic on 26th March, when it was still very cold, and they started OK.

They then got to a foot high, and have stayed like that since the beginning of June!

Heyho, some you lose...