Bed Marker for Garlic

[reinbeau]

I grow my own garlic here, and prefer the hardnecks also - but yes, that is a lot of garlic!

 

[Diavolicchio]

Again, impressive!
One question- how do you keep the weeds down in those large beds?

Diligence. And a bit of part-time help.

Those photos are from when we were planting a full 2-acres of garlic. Now we've scaled down to 2/10ths of an acre, all hardneck varieties. Much more manageable.

One of the big challenges with establishing a garlic patch is that garlic is an 'elastic' crop, meaning that although it won't produce big heads for the first couple of growing seasons, it eventually will. It needs to adapt or 'stretch' to your soil conditions, climate, soil chemistry, etc. It will over time, but it usually takes a few years of replanting the same stock for it to become the big, beautiful heads it has the capacity to become. It can be a little frustrating for the first year or two to feel as if you're doing everything right, but to still find that you're pulling only medium-sized heads out of the ground.

 

[me&thegals]

Egad! That's a lot of garlic! I have about 1500 planted this year, also in wide beds, but I put each row off-center of the one next to it. Your drum idea would still work, though, just staggering each cone off center.

Wow, that's really neat! Do you mulch your garlic? Any irrigation? Do you fertilize or add compost/manure/fish emulsion?

ETA: One more question: May I ask what your garlic sells for over in Maine, the land of Elliot Coleman?

 

[enjoy the ride]

Again, impressive!
One question- how do you keep the weeds down in those large beds?

Diligence. And a bit of part-time help.

Those photos are from when we were planting a full 2-acres of garlic. Now we've scaled down to 2/10ths of an acre, all hardneck varieties. Much more manageable.

One of the big challenges with establishing a garlic patch is that garlic is an 'elastic' crop, meaning that although it won't produce big heads for the first couple of growing seasons, it eventually will. It needs to adapt or 'stretch' to your soil conditions, climate, soil chemistry, etc. It will over time, but it usually takes a few years of replanting the same stock for it to become the big, beautiful heads it has the capacity to become. It can be a little frustrating for the first year or two to feel as if you're doing everything right, but to still find that you're pulling only medium-sized heads out of the ground.

I wonder what the mechanism is for that. I planted a german white type and got huge heads the first year. I planted a purple striped Italian and got much smaller heads that first year.

 

[Diavolicchio]

I wonder what the mechanism is for that. I planted a german white type and got huge heads the first year. I planted a purple striped Italian and got much smaller heads that first year.

My guess is the stock you planted of the Purple Striped Italian had too much of an adjustment to make from the environment it which it had been growing and the one in which you planted it.

 

[enjoy the ride]

Both came from the same local grower.
The change in cliamate was significant for both- came from a coastal flat land to my inland mountain.

Maybe it's just that one selects only the biggest bulbs for replanting?

 

[Diavolicchio]

Both came from the same local grower.
The change in cliamate was significant for both- came from a coastal flat land to my inland mountain.

Maybe it's just that one selects only the biggest bulbs for replanting?

It's all conjecture at this point. There are too many variables that could be involved.

If both came from the same grower, how did the garlic you produced compare in size to the heads they shipped you for planting?

 

[Diavolicchio]

Egad! That's a lot of garlic! I have about 1500 planted this year, also in wide beds, but I put each row off-center of the one next to it. Your drum idea would still work, though, just staggering each cone off center.

Wow, that's really neat! Do you mulch your garlic? Any irrigation? Do you fertilize or add compost/manure/fish emulsion?

ETA: One more question: May I ask what your garlic sells for over in Maine, the land of Elliot Coleman?

You could pretty much configure that drum however you wanted it. Just make sure that the circumference of the drum you start with is a multiple of the distance you want to space your garlic. My garlic is 8" apart in each row, so it was critical that the circumference of the drum be a multiple of that---in my case 56".

I definitely mulch. It's the biggest protection you can get against weeds. Here are a couple better photos showing the straw we put down on the beds.

We scatter dried bloodmeal a few times for extra nutrition, as well as turn well-composted manure into the soil is much as necessary. Drip irrigation hasn't been necessary, but we are set up for it. Most likely we will end up putting drip tape down the beds each year just as an assurance.

As for selling price, we've been charging $8/lb for it. We only sell local and don't ship.

 

[enjoy the ride]

The bulb size on the white was similar- the purple much much larger.

 

[me&thegals]

Beautiful rows! I dig in blood and bone meal, as that time of year we've already used up our composted manure and it's fall, so those have seemed to work good.

For other garlic growers, there's a garlic "bible" called something like Growing Great Garlic. It's excellent, comprehensive, easy to understand.

I love garlic because it's fairly minimally labor intensive (at least at my smaller amount) and yet brings in $1-1.25/bulb and you can get quite a bit in a small area at 8" spacing and 5-foot beds!

Well, welcome Diavolicchio, and thanks for the great idea!