Which Garlic Variety do you Like?

I have grown Garlic Maro and Garlic Cristo this year.

The maro did nothing :( [and I don't even know if I spelt it correctly, as I can't find it online - something I "just picked up" at the garden centre last autumn ...]

The Cristo have been moderately successful.

Just starting to plan what I will grow this year ... SOON in fact!

 

I started with Melody - a Scottish winter hardy variety from the reallygarlicky co in nairn.
I save some to replant each year. It makes great big bulbs and good flavour and stores well.

I planted some elephant garlic for the first time this year. Zilch. Just didn't grow at all. I've had the bulbs up twice to look at them - they haven't rotted, just sitting there doing nothing. Yhey've been in the ground since last year.

 

"What do you consider successful, is it the amount or the taste?"

OK, I'll fess up ... I'd like a crop, first and foremost. Mine has been pretty pathetic this year ...

I'm a bit of a sucker for the local Garden Centre. I have bought so much rubbish there it is untrue ... but with careful record keeping this year I really hope I'll do better next year.

I bought some Winter Lettuce (well, I assumed it was winter lettuce as I bought it in late Autumn and planted it in the greenhouse. I'm 99.99999999999% certain it was actually a standard summer lettuce; for the naive gardener why would they even sell such a thing? A bit like all those veg they sell that the gardening books say "DO NOT TRANSPLANT" Pak Choi in May ...

Most of the seed potatoes I bought off them are unheard of varieties, my Aphrodite have about 3 absolutely massive tubers per plant, and half the plants died (have you ever known of a potato plant, after growing reasonably well from a tuber to die? No disease, no frost, just curled up and went South, rest of the spuds are fine). and the resulting tubers are manky looking in the extreme.

Oh, and the bag full of Pink Fir Apple I got is going to last a lifetime - I hadn't really thought about how much we might need!! They are really good, but the bag was far too many for the average garden - about 50 plants I think.

So I got my Onion and Shallot sets from the Garden Centre last Autumn. I'm sure I shouldn't have been planting Onion and Shallot sets in the Autumn, should I??, but either way I had almost zilch results.

The Maro (or however it is spelt) garlic has given me nothing ... and the Cristo has given me a few, respectable, clumps.

I'm not sure about Elephant Garlic; seems to look like a normal bulb, but with absolutely massive cloves - so as many cloves as normal bulbs, just massive. I think I'll stick to something more conventional, for now.

Heavy soil here, so something that will give me a decent crop, on my soil, will be doing me for next year.

What soil preparation should I be doing?

Oh ... and the Roots bed has NO spare space, and that's supposed to be next year's Onions, Celeriac, and Leeks bed. Its full of Parsnips et al, plus some climbing roses that were supposed to have been transplanted last Autumn ...

... but I've bagged a large pergola from a country house that has been sold, and the pergola no longer required, so that will give me something to dismantle / re-assemble (hopefully over the next couple of weeks, and then I can move the roses ...)

... come to think of it, if I get my skates on that will free up some space for the overwintering Onions / Garlic.

Sorry, rabbiting on again ...

 

Kristen, if your soil is very heavy you might want to try growing your garlic in a container filled with compost.

I use a bread crate lined with porous membrane and filled with compost. Garlic and shallots do very well this way.

Alternatively you could try drawing the soil up into ridges - like earthing up potatoes - and plant the garlic cloves into the top of the ridge. That helps if the soil is heavy and wet in winter.

 

Thanks Alice, I should have mentioned that I have raised beds, but nonetheless the Garlic, Onions and Shallots didn't do very well this year.