[BobandJack]

Does garlic need to be grown in different locations each season?

[elibump]

The neighbours tell me that when you choose your cloves for planting the bigger the cloves you start with the bigger the bulbs and cloves when they've grown.

[Mythi]

bought solent wight (from marshalls i think), planted them in our very sticky clay soil in Oct/Nov and ignored them. they were flooded over winter, got terrible rust... and are a good size and taste fabulous! OH took some into work and they've even converted non-veggie growers into wanting to grow their own next year!

so think there's got to be a bit of luck involved!

Not too sure what variety mine were as they came with the onion sets I purchased from ebay but I grew mine exactly the same way and they are fabulous! Nice big juicy, very tasty cloves....beginners luck perhaps?

[Sadgit]

just posted on another thread about my dodo rotting garlic.. the ones that didn't rot are fantastic. Tis strange as a superb large bulb right next to a rotten one, repeat - Porcelain garlic (music)

[SG6]

It is recommended that you do not grow in the same place to prevent the build up of white rot and eel worms. However they destroy garlic so small garlic would not really be down to either.

If I recall mine were Provence, Piedmond and Another. All nice seed garlic and with large cloves. I think only 1, possibly 2 rotted.

Ground had an assortment of stuff added to it prior to planting and also added to it two or three times during the growing season.

All are small, smaller then I see in the supermarkets and as I said I used a supermarket one 2 years ago and had fair success. What came up from that was the equal of this years crop. I know that the supermarket one was probably from Spain but when you look at the results and the cost the supermarket one wins hands down.

The problem is what do I do this year, try the named cultivated varieties or pick a couple out at Sainsbury's?

[Trillium]

Ice, re raised beds. Sorry, didn't realize you already had them  Sounds like your soil could do with a bit of improvement. 
And to those asking, yes, garlic needs to be rotated just as you would onions (same family). I personally found that the larger, fatter cloves gave me bigger bulbs. Not always what I need or want as all the bulbs had good flavour. However, when making a soup recipe that called for 6 cloves, then really fat cloves made for a fairly stinky soup Most recipes go by store sized cloves, which aren't usually large.

[Ice]

It seems the answer is in the soil.  That's what I'll do different in the autumn, lots of lovely poo for them.

[Rampant_Weasel]

i usually put mine in about october and i put them where my potatoes have been.get a decent crop, not massive but not small either.im on clay soil if that helps at all.
got a bad case of rust this year but only in the past few weeks and they are ready to lift anyway.

[elibump]

 I'm feeling really guilty now .  I just put compost in my raised bed and some well rotted horse poo, planted the garlic last Nov and - left it alone.  Its done really well. Sorry Ice.

[Ice]

No problem elibump.  With all the free chicken poo I now have my garlic next year will be the size of footballs.

[Libby]

I planted mine in an unheated greenhouse in November.  I say unheated - there is frost on the inside of the windows as well as outside in bad weather  This just gives me a bit longer to sort the allotment out and the garlic still gets the cold that it needs. I planted one clove to a 4 inch pot. I then planted them outside in February and had bulbs 4 inches across this year.  My only problem is a major outbreak of allium leaf miner across the allotment and I had to dig the lot up last week, split them and freeze the cloves.  Now have about 300 cloves in the freezer.  Going to be eating a lot of garlic soup.

[zazen999]

I did a moon/non-moon garlic trial and the results are hopefully attached.

I found that the best results came from planting on the shortest day and harvesting on the longest.

Also, the smallest clove at the start produced the biggest bulb at the end.

Other than that, they were grown in heavy clay, and it had had potatoes in it last year - before that it hadn't been cultivated for years. Coffee grounds were added to the holes when sown.

The original cloves were bought from the local greengrocers in Nottingham.

Interesting trial, particularly for moon-sceptics [like my OH and lottie neighbour who both had to eat their words as the trial went on].

[bonfire]

My first year I planted spring garlic late. Some small cloves did not show until the summr so I left them in and they produced good bulbs the next season!
Since then I have saved bulbs from the July harvest and planted in late September or October and the results have been excellent for two years. I have not found any difference for small cloves in this autumn planted garlic. I don't feed or water at all but use good well prepared, rich ground.

Why would anyone want huge bulbs and cloves by the way - if anything mine are too big. I want decent size bulbs that keep well and big enough cloves but not so huge that there are aways waste bits kicking around the kitchen. Garlic is beautifully packaged and freakish great footballs are just inconvenient and a bit wasteful.

[Ice]

I love garlic and there are never any waste bits kicking around the kitchen.  I want to grow garlic that is bigger than a marble and can't see anything wrong with that.

[elibump]

 if anything mine are too big.


Too big?  ???Too big??      Too big?

Didn't think that was possible with garlic, sort of like too much!