[GreenDavie]

Hi Guys

I was just wondering if I can plant garlic now. i have justb bought a pack at the garden centrevb and I thought it had to be planted over the winter

If I plant it now when will it be available for harvesting

Davie

[mumofstig]

Yes you can.
I think this recent post will answer your question

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=69783.msg797183#msg797183

[GreenDavie]

Thank you, I will search the topics next time I think 

[chrisnchris]

Is there any reason why I shouldn't "borrow" a few cloves of garlic from the kitchen & plant those ?
If that's the case, can someone recommend the method, soil type etc.

Thanks

Chris

[DD.]

If you're talking about shop bought ones, they may have been grown in a different climate to ours, or carry disease.

Or you may get lucky!

[bigben]

I am not necessarily suggesting you go along the shop bought line for the same reason DD mentions.

I did last year with about 4 shop bought types along with some proper seed garlic. I found that the only shop bought ones to do any good was those from the "really garlicky garlic company". These are grown in Scotland so presumably are used to growing in our weather. The others did appear to grow ok but when I lifted them the cloves were annoyingly small.

You can actually buy seed garlic from the really garlicky garlic company and it works out not that much more than planting their eating garlic bought in the supermarket. I was so impressed that I bought about a dozen bulbs from them this year. Last year I planted around 120 cloves and am just about to run out. This year I have planted around 180 but they should produce bigger bulbs than the mix I produced last year.

[chrisnchris]

 Last year I planted around 120 cloves and am just about to run out. This year I have planted around 180 but they should produce bigger bulbs than the mix I produced last year.

Did the cloves grow into bulbs..made up of cloves, or did the single clove you planted just get bigger ?.

You eat a lot of garlic if that 120 cloves grew into 120 bulbs !!

[bigben]

Each clove grows into a bulb - but a lot of the shop bought stuff grew into tiny bulbs with cloves that were so small  we ended up using a whole bulb at a time.

We gave some away to family and friends as well perhaps 40 bulbs and I replanted some of my own larger bulbs to grow along with the bought seed garlic.

However we do eat a lot of garlic - my 3 kids fight over the last garlic cruton! With having a lot of it we took to roasting whole bulbs and squeezing out the roasted garlic to make really nice garlic bread and also chucking whole bulbs at a time into roasted veg. As I said earlier I only have about 8 bulbs left out of 120 so hope this year to make it last until the new crop is ready by growing around 180.

[viettaclark]

I grew 40 (3 bulbs) last year and they turned out much smaller than the parent. I saved 10 of the bigger ones to replant and also planted several bulbs of plump Spanish garlic bought for 30p each from the greengrocer, just as an experiment. I planted in November.
The Spanish came up very quicly and strongly and survived all the heavy winter weather whereas my plants only started showing a couple of weeks ago, but are growing well.
I put extra Spanish in when mine were late coming up and they came up too so I've now got 120 plants dotted among the spring cabbages!!!
Be interesting to see how the Spanish goes.... if they're a good size I'll replant some next year. No need to buy any ever again....!!!!