A three pronged approach to planting garlic.

Our attempts at growing garlic suffered a crop failure last year. The cloves were started in pots in the cold greenhouse and were doing well until they were planted out and then it was downhill all the way. I’ve since read that garlic needs plenty of water so I suppose the really dry spring and summer could have caused some of our problems. Whatever the reason next season we are going for broke and have bought a garlic collection. 

The number and size of the cloves of each variety vary considerably .

We bought one bulb each of the following:

• Albigensian Wight – hardneck variety (12 coves)
• Chesnok Red - hardneck variety (9 cloves)
• Early Purple Wight -  hardneck variety (17 cloves)
• Edenrose – hardneck variety (15 cloves)
• Germidour - softneck variety (12 cloves)
• Iberian Wight’ – softneck variety (8 huge cloves)
• Lautrec Wight - hardneck variety (12 cloves)
• Messidrome – softneck variety (8 cloves)
• Wight Cristo –  softneck variety (15 cloves)
• and
• Elephant Garlic - technically not a garlic at all (5 cloves)

We have both hard and soft neck varieties. The softneck don’t flower and are supposed to be better for storing. The hardneck varieties do flower - in fact when I split the bulbs there was the remains of a flower stalk in the middle of some of the bulbs - you need to pinch out any flower stems that develop so all the energy goes into bulb production.

I’m going to try a three pronged approach to see which method of growing will work best for us. 

The first prong was to plant up 3 cloves of each variety into pots using multipurpose compost. Although garlic needs moisture it doesn’t like to be waterlogged so I’ve placed the garlic trays across the trays on the greenhouse staging to allow for drainage. Unlike onions the cloves are pushed beneath the surface of the compost. In spring the young garlic plants will be planted out on the plot to grow on. 

For the second prong I planted three of each variety, except the elephant garlic, into a tub. Garlic apparently are hungry feeders and these plants will stay in tubs until they - hopefully - are ready to harvest. For this reason I mixed together John Innes number 3, multi purpose compost and grit. The John Innes is to provide better nutrition and the grit to help with better drainage. I thought the elephant garlic needed more space to grow to maturity which is why I haven’t planted any cloves in the tubs. The tubs will stay in the greenhouse overwinter and be moved outside in spring. Garlic needs a period of cold temperatures in order to grow cloves otherwise it can grow just one fat bulb. Life in our greenhouse will be cold enough but being under cover will prevent waterlogging.

The third and final prong was to plant some cloves straight into the ground. The cloves were planted in a shallow trench. Chicken manure pellets will provide some nutrients.

Now I just have to hope one prong actually works and produces a harvest. If all the prongs work then all I can say is that the whole of Yorkshire (including Whitby) will be a vampire free zone!