Buying garlic to plant- good vendors?

I had near complete crop failure on my garlic- as did several other local gardeners I know here in Maryland. I need to buy some bulbs for the first time in over a decade. Can anyone recommend a good source for new bulbs?

Thanks!

FedCo seems to have a pretty large selection.

Baker Creek also has several varieties.

I have good transactions with the Garlic Store in the past. Good selection and service, nice stock, kind of pricey though. http://www.thegarlicstore.com/

I like the Filaree Farm. I have been impressed with the seed. The potatoes are great too. Pricey though, but the selection and quality are excellent. I bought some Chesnok Red and it did super well here in zone 6a. The most beautiful clove skins on these I have ever seen. I’m so glad I tried this one. Not only did it grow large on first planting, the color is amazing, a very attractive garlic.
I suggest trying various types to find some that grows well in your area. I have bought 4 or 5 different ones over the years from this place, and have a great softneck, and a great hardneck now that both work well here. the softnecks were almost as large as the hardnecks. The biggest softnecks I ever saw, those were Nootka Rose.
http://www.filareefarm.com/seed-garlic-for-sale/home.php

The biggest bulbs of these softnecks was not braided, but put away for seed.

Chesnok Red - Our best performing Purple Stripe garlic year after year. Chesnok Red holds shape and retains flavor when cooked. Great choice for baking with a creamy texture. Produces very large bulbs that average 9 to 10 easy to peel cloves. From Shvelisi, Republic of Georgia.

Nootka Rose - Beautifully colored strain; a Northwest heirloom from the San Juan Islands off the Washington coast. From Steve Bensel of Nootka Rose Farm in Waldron, WA. Cloves streaked red on mahogany background with solid red clove tips. Medium to large bulbs and very attractive braided. Strong flavor. This is one of our most popular.

Speaking of braids, I braded my softnecks. I grow Nootka Rose and Idaho Silver.
I didn’t like the way that frog was looking at my garlic! Stick to bugs!

The biggest examples of these softnecks were not braided but put away for seed.

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I like Whistling Duck Farm: http://whistlingduckfarm.com. They’re pretty dedicated to garlic and have a great selection at a reasonable price.

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Territorial Seed.

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I had white rot this year so I am buying new garlic as well. Does anyone know if it’s safe to plant seed garlic that had no rot on it, but grew in an area where some plants were infected? We are building new raised beds this year and I don’t want to risk contaminating them.

Filaree Farm is my #1 garlic resource. I bought 30 varieties from them over the past two years, they sell the largest bulbs I’ve ever seen. A few varieties from The Garlic Store were decent as well.

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Absolutely not safe. Never plant garlic there again or onion. Or use cloves or anything else used there needs to be sterilized. Any tools used in the area sterilize. The fungus can remain dormant for over 20 years. the area is lost. You can spray, but the only fungicides I know of are commercial. Not sure consumer versions exist? You can sterilize the cloves in 115 degree water, dip them in it before planting. may not be 100% effective. if water reaches 120 degrees it will kill the garlic.
Water run off can spread this fungus. It’s a strange one, has no spores, but a seed like structure called sclerotia. They can survive for 20 years and still germinate. This is the new norm in that area, and maybe your whole yard? Good luck!

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LiquiCop

Physan 20

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/vegetables/garlic/

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I think that’s about $600 of garlic seed lost then. I had great success two years ago and replanted the same seed just a few rows down in an area that never had garlic before. I did add sheep manure as a top dressing, could it have come from that source? And then I added old straw on top of that (another possibility?) I’m scared of the ease of cross contamination into the raised beds since I am not the only one using the garden space and that in-ground area is used for more sprawling crops.

Well you could grow those in the old spot, that sucks but, yeah maybe worth a chance?

Don’t know? It should only infect Allium crops, so other crop will be fine. My guess it came in on infected seed.

There are currently four fungicides used to treat white rot: tebuconazole, fludioxonil penthiopyrad, and boscalid. You can get boscalid in Fruit Tree and Plant Guard by Bonide.

Anyway some info. Only read if you want to get depressed.

http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/r584100511.html

Copper ammonium nails it.

Good to know!

BTW … I notice the Grow Organic site advertises that LiquiCop doesn’t need a “sticker” or surfactant when sprayed on trees. Well, in places that it rains within 10 days that has proven otherwise in DWN et al trials. The rule-of-thumb I have is for the volume of LiquiCop you put in your sprayer, add 1/4 more Neem Oil. Definitely agitate frequently as you spray.

Copper and oil is a good choice. Luckily I never seen white rot! (yes knocking on wood).
I have been growing garlic a long time, love it, home grown is so juicy and fantastic.
All this talk I ordered Duganski hard and Transylvanian soft. Good ones for the cold here!
To go along with Nootka Rose, Idaho Silver, Killarney Red, Chesnok Red, and Wisconsin Heirloom.

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On above ground plant surfaces yes. I like the Neem Oil not only for its excellent surfactant properties but also because many a disease vector is repelled by its putred scent.

I’ve also come to believe that Copper Di-ammonium (LiquiCop) is the best fungicide choice for home owners. You follow the directions and it works, end of story.

Physan 20 (ammonium chloride) also works but you have to worry about repeated application of chloride. A drop in a bird bath or fish pond every other month is what it’s designed for and does the job very well without secondary kill.

Kocide 3000 works too on commercial sites but bringing the dosage down to a homeowner application can be challenging for many growers.

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Most of my garlic was from Filaree Farm, the only new garlic I ordered that year was from The Garlic Store and Baker Creek.

I had four 100’ long rows. The white rot was only a few plants in different sections along those 100’ rows. If it was caused by the seed garlic, wouldn’t it have been isolated to just the section that had the diseased varieties? Since it was only a few plants with the fungus of maybe 30-60 per type. The fungus showed up all along the 400’ of growing space but only in certain spots. That’s why I’m wondering if it was in the manure or straw. Or maybe that’s not possible to pass on the fungus those ways.

I do remember seeing black poppy seed looking things in my straw when I first bought it, and didn’t know what the heck that was. I mulched my raspberries with it and they all got root rot and died that year. Not sure if it’s my clay or the straw brought something.

That makes sense.

No it is, and looking suspicious now.

I ordered from http://www.scgarlic.com/index.html two years ago and the bulbs were huge. I have had great results the past two years. The only thing is that they only have German White, which I was fine with since I ordered the prior year and was my favorite variety out of the ones I ordered.

I bought garlic seed from five sources last year after getting excited reading about all the different varieties. I went a little crazy and I think I’ll cut it down to just 3-4 types this year, growing a half row of each.

Salvere Farm http://www.salverefarm.com/
Great quality garlic that was perfectly cured and came up nearly 100%. I was trying several types of rocambole garlic here in Virginia 7A, including Carpathian, Russian Red and Hungarian Purple. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the ideal environment for these types of garlic and while they all came up not all of them really thrived, but the Hungarian Purple in particular did really well for me. This has been a very odd year for weather, particularly the rain, but except for a cooler spring it may not have been that different at the time the garlic was still in the ground. Anyway, I’ll plant some of the Hungarian Purple again, but the others I’ll just eat and enjoy. They only had the large size for the Carpathian, so I bought the much cheaper ($10/lb) medium for the other 2 and they were actually just fine since the cloves in them were fairly large. I’m not sure I could plan on medium always being a good choice, but it worked for these. This seems like a great source.

Filaree Garlic Farm http://www.filareefarm.com/
I was ordering late and they were the only ones I could find that had Metechi left, which I had wanted to try. Only about half came up and the production was really erratic, mostly on the small side. I’m not faulting the vendor, since it could have been weather, my soil or just how the variety does in our heat/humidity. I think I’d still like to try these again, but I think I’ll taste them first and make sure it is really different enough to make the effort.

Dirt Goddess Garlic Farm http://www.dirtgoddessseeds.com/Organic_Garlic_s/1957.htm
I bought 3 varieties from this vendor and when they arrived there were a bit moist and had some mold/mildew forming on the bulbs. I made the mistake of waiting to plant and they continued to deteriorate. Of what I thought was still worth planting (less than 25% of the order), only about 50% came up. Besides being poorly cured or just getting wet somewhere in packing, the smaller size were really small. In fairness, they list it as “culinary” and aren’t suggesting it is seed size, but it is priced the same as Salvere’s smaller size that was just fine for seed. But based on the condition of what I received I wouldn’t recommend them unless they have something you want and can’t find anywhere else.

High Mowing Seeds https://www.highmowingseeds.com/
I really like this vendor overall and the garlic was no exception. I bought Zemo from them and they performed great. This also appears to be a great variety for our area, much like the German White I’ve been growing for years after buying a few bulbs from a farmers market vendor.

Father-in-law (sorry no link, lol)
My father-in-law has gardened most of his life and he’s been keeping a strain of garlic going that he found already growing in the garden of their home (in WV) when they purchased it 40 years ago. So basically it was somebody’s heirloom that is basically now an unknown. I tried it this year and it was definitely different than the other types I grew, but performed great and produced very nice heads. The bulbis it makes are very large if you leave the scapes on and it has a leafier/denser growth habit. I only mention it here to suggest asking around when people look for garlics since there are a lot of people who have grown a type in your area that has proven itself for generations.

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