I found some Garlic starts, need advice...

[modern_pioneer]

I rotate beds, and have a strip row I use for onions and garlic. This is used because deer won't eat them. I stopped using the bed.... I am in zone 5.

While out looking for ramps, I passed by it and noticed I must have missed a couple at some point.

So now, they're 6 inches tall, and in clusters. My thoughts are to dig them up, put them in water to separate and replant.

Is my approach correct?

 

[flowerbug]

I rotate beds, and have a strip row I use for onions and garlic. This is used because deer won't eat them. I stopped using the bed....

While out looking for ramps, I passed by it and noticed I must have missed a couple at some point.

So now, they're 6 inches tall, and in clusters. My thoughts are to dig them up, put them in water to separate and replant.

Is my approach correct?

i'm not sure where you are at or what season it might be. assuming you are in the north and in a temperate climate i would leave them alone until after they have finished their growth for this season unless you have enough where you want to eat some of it as fresh/green garlic or if you have enough you could dig some of them up and divide and replant and compare those to neighboring plants that haven't been disturbed.

if you do happen to be in the other pole (i.e. in the fall and not the spring) you could get away with lifting them and dividing them and then replanting them to give them all more space.

you don't really need to put them in water to break them apart. i think most of the roots will recover regrow as long as they don't completely dry out, but in the time it takes to divide a small bulb of garlic they shouldn't dry out that much.

all IMO.

 

[modern_pioneer]

i'm not sure where you are at or what season it might be. assuming you are in the north and in a temperate climate i would leave them alone until after they have finished their growth for this season unless you have enough where you want to eat some of it as fresh/green garlic or if you have enough you could dig some of them up and divide and replant and compare those to neighboring plants that haven't been disturbed.

if you do happen to be in the other pole (i.e. in the fall and not the spring) you could get away with lifting them and dividing them and then replanting them to give them all more space.

you don't really need to put them in water to break them apart. i think most of the roots will recover regrow as long as they don't completely dry out, but in the time it takes to divide a small bulb of garlic they shouldn't dry out that much.

all IMO.

So I left four of the clusters alone to see if I can recover them this summer after they die off. I did dig two clusters up which provided me with 27 different plants. I tilled and planted those into slightly moist soil. I did use a water hose to try to separate the huge root ball mass, carefully trying to leave on each one as many roots to each one I could.

I have never done this before so if I fail I know this isn't a good idea. If it works, I will have extra Garlic that I will give to the Pittsburgh Food Bank.

I don't know why I didn't originally post my zone when I asked the question, silly me.... zone 5

Thank you for your response, God bless!!

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Can you put your planting zone in your profile? I have missed garlic in my garden all the time. If it's not in the way, I ignore it, and harvest along with my intentional garlic. If you miss a few scapes, garlic becomes a WEED!!! So... I agree with FB. But it will be fun to see what happens with your experiment. Please... do keep us posted.

 

[flowerbug]

zone 5 is about where i am at. the garlic here that i grow is a hard neck garlic. it survives anything the weather or i throw at it.

i made the mistake many years ago of taking thousands of bulbules into my green manure patch. ever since then i've been trying to dig it all out when i get time. i eat it as green garlic.

i don't know if you are growing a hard neck garlic or something else?

the bulbs left alone will be fine, they will not be as big as they would have been had you dug them up and divided them and replanted them last summer/fall, but they will survive. the ones you did dig up and replant you can have as a comparison to those left in place. you likely will get a mix of results where some will be smaller or bigger.

if you can say how large the cloves were that you planted that will give me some idea of what you might get back. like in the case of where you have a small clove and replant it you may not get back a divided bulb at all as it might be a singleton and other times i have planted smaller cloves and gotten back a dozen smaller cloves in a very tiny bulb. if what you planted was larger then you may get back smaller bulbs up to medium sized bulbs (depending upon what this season does for weather and your soil conditions). the larger cloves you can plant the larger your results should be.

the garlic i plant for my own crop i select the largest cloves and replant them and each clove is about the size of my thumb. from those i get bulbs 4-5 inches across. for green garlic i plant things twice as deep as normal and closer together (because it will be getting dug up and eaten).

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I have had cloves of garlic survive the winter here in 4B, even if left laying on the bare ground. today, I unearthed a bunch that had been buried when filling raised beds. I set them aside, and will plant them... somewhere... Also, found some swiss chard that had also been buried. I planted that. Roots were in fair shape, lots of outer leaf rot, and center crown of plant was trying desperately to come back to life, about 4" long... so... those got planted.

 

[modern_pioneer]

I saw that these were smaller bulbs, and the stems were purple like ramps are. Which makes me think these were originally a spicy Italian Garlic that I obtained illegally. LOL... Why would I mention that?

In 2006 I received a package from Italy labelled buttons....

Upon opening, a letter from a unknown source said that this Garlic was banned from US since 1954. In 2006 I harvested wheel barrels full of Garlic, I can prove that. One side Shallots, the other Garlic....

Anyway the letter I read talked about a mold on White Skinned Garlic and how the US banned the flavor rich Garlic. It carried the mold which effected the White Skin Garlic, and created the mold on the white skin... So it couldn't be sold at retail.....






I

 

[Britesea]

unknown source? that's actually kind of scary

 

[flowerbug]

garlic being rarely grown from seed can have disease problems - repeated cloning doesn't give resistance.

when making seeds some plants are able to leave behind some diseases.

i've had some small rot here or there but nothing too bad. white mold on garlic usually just means it wasn't able to be cured or it wasn't harvested at the right time or some other post harvest or storage issue. there are diseases of garlic, i'm just glad that as of yet i only read about them and not have to experience directly. even in our heavy soil ours does ok. i perch the gardens up a bit so they have a bit more drainage than they'd get if i left them flat. the garlic i leave out in the more wild gardens where it is more our native subsoil of almost all clay does ok. it is harder to harvest and clean up for storage and most of the time i just eat it as green garlic because i am trying to remove it from that garden/yard area anyways. sometimes i dig it up and leave it on the surface so the worms can eat it as it dries out and breaks down. always find worms around it and in the roots, they must like those compounds the roots give off and whatever is in the plant itself as it grows and then decays.

mold itself isn't usually a problem for plants, but circumstances and climate can make it turn from a non-event into something more than that. like as an example, i grow a lot of beans, a lot of different varieties, if i mix shorter season beans in a planting and then don't keep them harvested and the dead plants removed when they are done the surrounding plants which grow over them may cause white mold to get going, which can then rot the stems of the green plants too. if i remove those dead bits of the shorter season plants then there isn't a problem. observe and learn.

as far as garlic and cold goes, i've had the ground freeze down several feet here and the garlic doesn't notice it as long as the garlic is in the ground and it doesn't dry out it is ok.

the garlic i grow is acclimated to our area as it has been here longer than i've been alive.