Question for garlic growers

[Dawn419]

I've started harvesting my fall '11 planted garlic and am ashamed at the size of my bulbs. I know a lot had to do with lack of soil fertility plus shoddy weather extremes.

My question is:

Should I continue to harvest the bulbs or would it be feasable to leave them in the ground and amend the soil (on top of the soil) and then harvest them next summer?

 

[Bettacreek]

I'm not speaking from experience, but from what I've read, people have said that if you get a bad crop, not to let them in the ground. I guess you're supposed to pull everything, seperate the bulb pieces and replant them. Otherwise I guess they don't grow much better than what they are now? It'd at least give you a chance to amend the soil and till it in, plus you could keep some of it to eat.

 

[~gd]

Pull it. I have left it in like you are considering and wasted my time hoping it would auto subdivide. It didn't.

 

[me&thegals]

Pull it, buy big bulbs from someone else and replant the largest sections next fall. Good luck! Drought hasn't helped garlic, either.

 

[k15n1]

pull them, for sure. Otherwise they'll be too crowded next year.

Sometimes small cloves are OK. The grocery store selects for varieties that are large and store well. Your cloves may be smaller, but the flavor may even be better than what you could buy.

I guess it's time to plant winter garlic for next year...

 

[Corn Woman]

Ditto. pull it and plant the largest ones. Mine were terrible this year too.

 

[Dawn419]

Thanks for all of the replies, everyone!

I was hoping (okay, more like dreaming) that if I left them in the ground until next year that the bulbs would get bigger.

I'll continue digging this afternoon, once the bed is in the shade. Small, fresh from the garden garlic is still way better than any we've ever bought from the grocery store. Once the bulbs have cured, I'll set aside the largest cloves for planting this fall and will thoroughly enjoy eating the rest!

 

[Theo]

This year I harvested lots of single bulbs (no cloves) for some reason. A friend said to plant those this fall because they will produce big garlic cloves next year.

 

[opiemaster]

I have just started growing garlic, this is my 3rd year. I found wild garlic in the ditches with BIG bulbs, I pulled them and will plant them with some I have bought. This years harvest wasnt very big\. I try to companion plant with my garlic but either way, this was just a bad year. so I have purchased some larger bulbs from local growers along with the ones I got from the ditch and try those in about a month. With this drought I think its gonna be tough no matter what we do here in the midwest.

 

[Dawn419]

Thanks for the reply about the single bulbs, Theo, as I found one today and that was going to be my next question!

I got a few bulbs dug and then hit a section where I couldn't get the garden fork into the soil so I had to run the soaker hose for a bit and will continue digging tomorrow.

Opiemaster,

The heat and drought are kicking our butts here in North Central AR, too! I think I'll be getting a couple bales of peat moss to help amend the soil in the raised beds to help with moisture retention. I use thick mulch but the soil is sandy river bottom topsoil and I suspect it's draining too fast to do the plants any good.

This is my second garlic harvest and last years, although small with only about 2 dozen cloves planted (from store bough garlic) was gorgeous, compared to what I'm seeing this year. Hopefully next year will be better for all of us!