[dead eye dave]

Does anyone have any idea what might be causing my garlic leaves/ long shoots to go mottled yellow (-ish)? Or is this normal?

[dead eye dave]

Aha, answered my own question.....it apears to be a notrogen definciency......how do I sort that? A general feeding?

[dead eye dave]

or is it somethng else??? much obliged for any help.......

[Dan78]

Mine are doing the same.. I fed them with growmore at the weekend but didnt look any better today

[Snoop]

Well, I've been giving mine regular feeds with nitrogen-rich fertiliser and even a brief dusting with copper sulphate (I've been told the sulphur helps chlorophyll), but I was looking at them today thinking the selfsame thing: they're going yellow. I've run out of garlic in the kitchen and was pondering on lifting one to have a look see on the grounds that I'd use it anyway.

I'd be glad to hear any views/advice too.

[compostqueen]

I dosed mine up with Epsom salts last week but no improvement thus far.  They'll be fine though I suspect.  I might give them seaweed liquid next (diluted as per instructions)    I usually water with it once a week but left off while I did the Epsom Salts, don't want to give too much medicine at once  

[Pompey Spud]

Garlic likes potash.

I give mine some potassium sulphate once a month.

Ash would do the job.

[Dominic]

Mine are yellowing as well, but arent the tops due to die off some time soon now?

[Pompey Spud]

mid to end of June early July.

I lifted a few y/day. Not quite there yet.

[chris23005]

My first year growing garlic which I bought from the IOW garlic farm, so it came with very precise instructions! The garlic which I planted in the autumn is now showing its outer leaves to be yellowing and my instructions say that is when to consider lifting as they are due to be ready in June. I had no flowering spikes although someone on here suggested that not all garlicf produces flowers, so I have lifted the biggest one to see what is happening. It is a reasonable sized bulb but I will leave the others in a little longer to see what is going on.

[corynsboy]

If anyone can offer some more guidance I'd be very grateful.

I have a bit of trouble growing garlic so I planted five different varieties and about a quarter of all the plants have either gone yellow and died or rotted from the bottom up. 

Following last years almost total failure; I put in 70 small plants (not bulbs) from the unheated greenhouse in very late Autumn.   It's a lot, but I expected heavy casualties. I wasn't disappointed.  All the plants survived the heavy snows and frosts in pretty good shape.  In the last four weeks some have started to yellow and die.  I'm down to about 50 now with probably another 12 showing signs that they will not make it to July.  Strangely the rest are in pretty good shape. 

All varieties in the bed have been affected.

I weed every week and don’t damage the plants when I weed.  I like to grow my herbs and onions hard as I think that they benefit from it, but I've not been in charge of watering this year so the garlic might have gotten a little wetter than I would otherwise like.  The ground is light and free draining but in good shape with decent levels of organic material and PH testing in early spring showed it was slightly acid but well within normal tolerances.

I'm keen not to fuss with the remaining plants as it's a bit close to lifting time and I believe that water is not a garlic bulb's friend in the last month before lifting.  I have a one last shot with watering of my trusty comfrey soup. 

[Pompey Spud]

Its been said to me that you need to water garlic loads more than you would other aliums.

Maybe you're too harsh and hence they're dying.

Try the potassium way though.

[mashauk]

I hardly ever water my garlic, maybe once a week if that unless it's particularly dry and hot.  I don't pick them until probably July though, I planted 100 this year saved from last years crop and although some of the leaves are a bit yellow I'm not worried about them.  I normally over winter them but couldn't last year so they didn't get planted out until about March.

[chris23005]

My Garlic Farrm instructions say to cease watering 2 weeks before due harvest date, otherwise they need watering regularly. The ones I planted in March are doing OK but obviously nowhere near as big as the ones planted in September last year. No casualties so far though, although two didn't actually germinate at all. Thats out of about 30 planted.

Edited: to say that our soil is very light and sandy so maybe that is why none of mine have rotted off! Is your soil heavy or clay?

[mashauk]

I must be lucky then, my soil is neither heavy nor clay, it did get a good feed this year, but I've never watered garlic or onions regularly apart from in hot weather or after I've just put them in.