I saw @aap grew some garlics so I fired up this weed eater 3.5 HP Briggs and Stratton that I bought for my old house 18 yrs ago. I haven’t touch this thing in 13 years and it still works like a charm. OK Bob. Game on!!!
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Tony, that,’s way to much, how many are you planning to grow, that looks like 500. You go guy!!
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I have to buy some garlics, seeds potatoes, and sweet union to fill up that spot. I may put in a row of muster green and a row of Jalapenos.
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Added these two beds and some mulch the past two days, left side of the sidewalk is all raspberries and two fig trees
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Looks great.
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Sounds like a plan! My apologies if you already know this, but the garlic will have to wait till fall. Do you have any varieties in mind?
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I am not sure. I saw some real large garlic cloves at the Asian Market and will buy some to start. What are some good large varieties that you would recommend?
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Most will work OK in cold zones, but if you’re going to go the trouble of growing it, it’s worth looking in to some of the heirloom varieties with nice and varied flavors. Some that I’ve liked are Kettle River Giant and Lorz Italian for softnecks, and Russian Red and Music for hardnecks. Inchellium Red is often touted as the “best” tasting garlic, but I find different garlics work better for different purposes. Seed garlic is pricey, but you can replant from your best bulbs every year so it makes up for the initial cost pretty quickly. Also, there is higher risk of disease planting from store bought. Best time to buy is August and early September, as they tend to sell out early across all sellers.
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Are you growing elephant garlic then? The leaves and young shoots are good in soup and stir fry. @tonyOmahaz5
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@tonyOmahaz5 I somehow missed the “large” part of the question! The porcelain type hardnecks have really large cloves. Music, for example, would grow 3-4 oz bulbs for me with 4-5 jumbo-sized cloves in them. I liked them best for soups and salsa. Most of the rocambole hardnecks and some of the artichoke softnecks will have cloves that average the size of the largest cloves you typically find in a supermarket. I wish I had some photos to show the difference, but I appear not to have taken any, at least that I can find.
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@PharmerDrewee , I will try to stir fry the leaves for a taste test. @jcguarneri, my grown children loved roasted garlics in olive oil and spread them on fresh baked French Baguette.
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Mmmm… that’s hard to beat! Honestly, they’ll all work well for any garlic purpose, but some are more “optimal” than others if you want to get fussy (I do). I really like the Rocamboles and the Artichokes for roasting in olive oil. If you want to roast the cloves whole, the Porcelain types shine and are impressive because of the jumbo cloves, but the texture is a little softer/starchier.
Here’s a link to descriptions of the major variety classes, starting with Rocambole. This is also an excellent supplier for seed garlic.
https://www.filareefarm.com/roc.html
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Any garlic bulbs you get make sure to store in the fridgerator a little over two weeks before planting. This year i got a bunch of garlic and the goal from my wife was to get easy to peel hardnecks. We will see if these are better we got a good one that i do not know the name of that does great here but is very hard to peel and is probably more of rocambole by the amount of cloves? However i wish i had triple the amount i have currently
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That will get things working ok for spring planting, but I think it’s far better to fall plant. You get much better root systems and larger bulbs.
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Weed barrier is in placed. Now just cut some holes to plant as I go. Hopefully weeds free for a while. Extra woods left over to anchor the barrier. It looks like a runway!
Potatoes
Garlics
@PharmerDrewee. I bought the large garlics at the Asian market. Hopefully , they are elephant garlics.
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Thanks for this reminder. I was planning to put some in just for the greens, since I’m not a big fan of the actual elephant garlic bulbs. If I don’t care about the bulbs, is it fine to plant elephant garlic now for greens? Actually I was going to plant them close as well, since I had seen someone doing that and pulling them fresh when they were still just rounds to use like leeks.
I’d wait until early fall to plant them. They will flower in a few weeks here when temps are consistently in the 70’s. Planting close is fine and I use them like leeks too. They can be harvested through the winter here in PA as long as temps don’t go into single digits and knock them back.
As you can see, they are planted pretty densely. The grassy looking plants among them are rakkyo.
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Andrew,
Those are elephant garlic for leave consumption?
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Tiny,
You are quite metriculous. Those squares are symetrical. If it were my handiwork, it would look like Cubism.
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Yes, these are for leaf consumption. I cook them like leeks. I prefer them as fresh greens as opposed to using the bulbs like garlic. They can be left in the ground year after year, but removing the bulbs during summer and replanting individually will result in more vigorous, leafy plants.
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