I tend to call whatever block looks like a block with holes a cinder block… but there are also cement and concrete blocks… i guess it shows my age.
I made a raised bed with about 40 blocks that my dad grew garlic in for years. He planted green onions in the holes i think…
I have no plans on just planting in the holes… but will try a few to see how that works out. Probably put some small zinnias in most of the holes for pollinators…
As far as the fly ash… i hauled for 2 concrete companies and they both used ash in their mixes. I think the local block company uses it in theirs as well. A friend of mine used to haul ash to them but not sure now.
I guess you need to paint the blocks to be sure…because concrete blocks often contain ash.
I had a reasonable harvest, but did lose a fair amount to some type of rot this year. You can see the one on top further to the left of this picture that had some rot, but seemed worth keeping to see if any cloves would still be good. This was my harvest this year, mostly cured and ready to be cleaned up and stored.
These were grown at my community garden plot and most other gardeners are having issues with rot, possibly as a result of alium leaf minors, and many folks pulled their garlic before harvest since it was so bad. Garlic had been pretty carefree for me, but now I’m having more issues. The rot comes on suddenly and you see the top yellow and start dying and by that time it is too late. This harvest was German hardy (AKA German extra hardy, German white), Zemo and Romanian Red.
I’m not sure I’ll plant garlic this year, since this rot issue seems wide spread and the alium leaf minors are getting worse every year, particularly in a community garden which is just a hot bed of disease and pests. If I had lots of space I would, but I can use the space for things like broccoli, cabbage, etc.
I planted mine 2nd week in Oct here…and we had an unusually warm Fall…that lasted a long time… i had a foot of vegetative growth in December and lost most of a local heirloom that i planted… the others did really well even though alot of the vegetative growth died but they came back. I got really upset when daffodils poked up all over the place in my new bed… i had never seen daffodils grow there…
8 months is a long time to invest in a gamble… but so worth it if it succeeds.
My neighbor makes a garlic powder that wallops you with every sensation on your taste buds. I had no idea that garlic powder could have that many levels of flavor above the store bought. She makes it in an old dehydrator.
I eat alot of garlic… and my choices have mostly been cheap chinese grocery store garlic which is ignorant of me to even eat… im trying to change that.
In case anyone wants to know… i learned alot and did some overthinking on my garlic patches. Both beds have dirt from my spent dirt pile that i wheelbarrowed in… and then i dumped in wheelbarrow loads of horse manure and shredded leaves…i then mini tilled it all into a nice mix. Had to use hands to get it all just right… lots of prep in the Fall before planting. I planted and then top dressed with woodchips and then top dressed that with leaves and let it do its thing all winter long. In the spring i began weeding little by little… the beds were pristine… then around May i said screw it. I read everywhere that weeds are a no no… and they hinder growth and all kinds of stuff. I decided to stop weeding. The more i looked at it…the weeds were actually kinda helping… So here is the pictures of the beds after harvest…and those are all weeds i would have had to pull by hand for several months… yuck! I think the weeds helped… gave more moisture and the roots did their things to the soil.
So this year im going to do a really good prep before planting and im gonna forget about it til July. 9 months is too long to baby something that grows below ground and seems to me did just fine for me.
Adding Susan Delafield this year very popular in Canada and just making its way down to the states recently. Seems to maybe be a sport of Music but has been noted to have better taste and much longer storage. It is talked about as being very tolerant of wet conditions as well. Has thick tough skins so is noted for storing up until past May of the following year.
Elephant garlic is more closely related to leeks than it is to garlic. It is milder, so it is possible that it would be less likely to cause heartburn.
As mentioned elephant garlic (Allium ampeloprasum) is a form of leek. Although it’s popular name has “garlic” in it, it does not taste like garlic to me.
Just a word of advice from an old garlic grower. Each one of these sources of seed you have in mind will most likely be also sending you their own garlic diseases. Its probably best to limit the number of sources in any one year and definitely quarantine that seed source planting area.
Too many to list actually. Garlic is very susceptible to soil born pathogens. Im not trying to scare you off. Growing garlic is a wonderful experience and well worth the effort. You have to start somewhere and buying seed from someone else is your only choice. Im just trying to caution you as to what you might run into. In my 30+ years of commercial garlic production I have tried over 40 varieties of garlic and it has been a miserable task of trying to get rid of various pathogens in my soil. The last 15 or so years I have had the luxury of only growing 1 variety of garlic and my problems have disappeared…knock on wood!
I got garlic from peaceful valley farms this year and it is really nice. Does it have disease? IDK. I am also trying the Christopher Ranch heirloom garlic in some areas. I kind of plant garlic where there is room and not in a dedicated bed. I like mixing it in open spaces where other things just won’t fit.
Hopefully at least one of the varieties I got will grow well, then I can save some large bulbs and not have to introduce more.
I can also report on ordering from Keene Garlic which is one of the vendors recommended above. I chose it because they had sampler packs which were relatively small.
I had no idea what would work in my area. So I got a hardneck and softneck sampler from Keene Garlic. I got the non-organic versions. I cannot evaluate the quality of what I got, since I am new to this - but it seemed very good. The bulbs seemed to be of a nice size (a bit larger than most bulbs you see) and in good condition - dry but not shriveled up or anything.
I ended up getting three hardneck types: Russian Red, Ivan, and Dunganski and three softneck types: Early Italian Softneck, Silverwhite, and Lorz Italian.
I had a total failure last year with stuff I ordered (from Gurney’s - yes I know this was a bad mistake). I got two varieties and they were SO TERRIBLE looking. One had cloves that were all shriveled up on the inside and the other had cloves with moldy edges.
I did have success with elephant garlic last year (mentioned above, is actually a leek, has very tasty scapes).So I blamed the failure on the seed garlic I bought and decided to try again this year.
As an aside, when I was looking at the filaree farms website I saw this: We are looking to purchase garlic seed for Chinese Purple, Labera Purple, Native Creole, Spanish Roja to preserve and grow for 2026 Please email info@filareefarm.com So if any of the garlic fans out there want to sell them some of those, they’re looking.
Interesting selection. The Dunjanski used to be almost impossible to find but has seen a rise in popularity. I tried the white Dunjanski and tried for longest time to get some red but could only find sources in Australia (where apparently they take their garlic very seriously).
Elephant is a personal taste thing. If you like very mild garlic then maybe. We found more money to be made in selling the flowers.
Gurney’s has always been kind of a low quality place but i took a chance this spring and ordered a plum tree tree that i couldnt find anywhere else and of the 4 i got from 4 different places, one died, the Gurney one was, very surprisingly, the biggest with the most roots and has done very well.
That’s surprising to here about Filaree and Spanish Roja. That variety has been a mainstay here in the PNW for as long as i can remember and Filaree always highly recommends it for here. They must have had a crop failure which goes to show you that even the experts can have problems.
