Is it advisable to plant garlic cloves that are slightly damaged? I only had one bulb have fuzzy mold, which I did not plant, and small cloves that I will plant to harvest as green garlic, but I have about a pound of cloves that have small indents, spotty discoloration, or scarring that I’m left wondering if I should go ahead and plant. This is my first year planting garlic; I went with California Late White Garlic.
1 Like
If that’s all I had, I would plant that. small indents, no matter. treat them kindly and you should have better bulbs for next year’s planting.
1 Like
I wouldn’t plant moldy ones or any you suspect are a disease or virus, but if something took a bite out of it or you nicked it with your spade reasonably close to when you’re replanting it, I’d go for it.
If in doubt, plant it in a separate space from your primary bed and pay it a bit more attention in case you find it needs to be destroyed. Or trim it up and eat it.
1 Like
I ended up planting them anyways. Will keep an eye out for diseases. If anything crops up, I’ll harvest it early to avoid spreading it to the healthy cloves.
That looks like bruising to me. Could have happened during shipping. Most places that sell garlic are clueless as to how fragile it is.
1 Like
Since I planted garlic, I decided to plant onions too. It seems that I am still within the time frame to plant some, so I bought two bundles each of Texas Legend, Texas Early White, and Red Creole: all bought from Dixondale. Is a bundle really four dozen? I planted 208 of Texas Early White and 52 of Texas Legend until I got tired; I finished one bundle of the former and barely made a dent in the latter.
4 Likes
Do these really keep for three weeks? They seem a bit dry. I’m hoping to plant more tomorrow, but I doubt I’ll be able to fit them all. Will try to interplant between the brassicas after running out of rows.
2 Likes
I’ll be eating them as they grow too because I’m unsure if they will keep for long in the summer: toss them onto a grill in a carne asada; add them to make broth; stir fry them with any protein.
What’s the success rate for transplanted onions from Dixondale? Have you planted from their stock? What is your process for growing onions? Hoping all the onions make it; not because I necessarily require them too (they will be too much to process, which is a challenge I’m up for; my family and neighbors will gladly take some), but planting so many would be highly disappointing if the harvest is few.
2 Likes
I would think you could keep those onion starts for a pretty goo period of time in the fridge, they look like they are very good condition.
From the looks of those you should get >99% survival rate unless you muff it. The good rule of thumb for onions is to plant them as shallow as possible (they get bigger) without getting the roots dried out or wash them out when watering.
I like freezing most of the onions I grow, and if you can vacuum seal them well and freeze them fairly quickly they can come out of the freezer a year later and thaw them (if the vacuum is still on them) and still have crisp fresh onions.
5 Likes
I have been keeping them in the kitchen because it stays cool all day especially at night. It has been incredibly foggy these past couple of days with rain expected this week.
I planted them shallow and pressed down the soil to anchor them before watering (and the storm). I’m very excited.
I want to grow a couple of huge onions. I fertilized and added composted chicken manure. From what I’ve read and seen, I have to fertilize them regularly to obtain a large amount of top growth before bulb formation begins. I don’t mind medium sized bulbs, so I might dedicate one or two rows for big onions and fertilizer more than the rest.
1 Like
In my experience I don’t see much of any relation between the top size and the bulb size, it actually seems almost the opposite for me with the huge onions have cartoonishly small tops and the huge topped ones produce bulbs just like leeks.
2 Likes
Leeks you say. Now I’ll have to buy a bundle of those. 
2 Likes
Ill be trying a few onions from seed starting next month. Walla walla , ishikura bunching, american flag leek, and nodding onion. Nodding onion is more of a ornamental but still gotta get themnseeds started
6 Likes
Finished planting the rest of the rows for Texas Legend; planted Red Creole too. So many onions! 
2 Likes
They start so easily from seed. Look up seed snails. Leeks and onions are also easily grown from ones you buy in grocery store.
1 Like
Will be ordering a bundle of leeks in January from Dixondale. I wish I could grow shallots too, but it seems the ones sold on their site are suitable for long and intermediate day areas.
1 Like
What does it mean when one clove, an individual plant, has two, sometimes three, stalks growing? I could have sworn I placed one clove, and since I am growing a softneck, perhaps my assumption of one huge clove was actually a cluster of tiny ones.
Sometimes, especially with larger cloves, there will be two or three cloves in the same wrapper. Some varieties are more prone to this than others. I usually pull out the duplicates since you’ll end up with two misshapen bulbs if you leave them alone.
3 Likes
I’ll try to pull out the duplicates. Thanks!
1 Like