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Garlic
May 21, 2014 16:27:55 GMT -5
Post by Laura_in_FL on May 21, 2014 16:27:55 GMT -5
" swamper, those sound like some nice varieties. I would love to focus on garlics that make a few large cloves, but a lot of those garlics don't like Florida." Which of the major subgroups do best in FLA? Here in North Florida we have more choices than Central or South Florida. The safe bets are Turbans and other Asiatics, artichokes, and Creoles. Some of the marbled purple stripes (not regular purple stripes), porcelains, and silverskins may work in colder years, but may not do well if we have a mild winter. In Central Florida the best choices would be Turbans, artichokes, and Creoles. Creoles would be the best bet for South Florida but garlic is iffy down there. It's just too warm in the winter and it gets hot too early in the spring. (Anywhere in Florida, pre-chilling the bulbs improves the odds of garlic heading up properly.)
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Garlic
May 22, 2014 5:50:58 GMT -5
Post by gixxerific on May 22, 2014 5:50:58 GMT -5
Garlic doing good here, next to the Russian Invasion tomato rows
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Garlic
May 22, 2014 22:41:17 GMT -5
Post by paquebot on May 22, 2014 22:41:17 GMT -5
Lots of garden advice that one reads is written by someone who has never grown what they try to advise on. They merely read something that someone else wrote and repeat it. Until someone made a major gaffe and said that garlic forms heads only saw a mature plant with a cluster of bulbils on top, a garlic bulb was always a bulb. Now any novice would have to assume that garlic is the only plant which grows upside down and produces heads underground? I've grown garlic for either 31 or 32 years and have yet to find anything but a bulb under each plant. All of the hardnecks have heads but they are on the top of a long stalk!
What one gets from a small clove is largely dependent upon growing conditions. Small ones contain the same DNA as large ones. They are capable of developing the same root system and will take in the same amount of nutrients. There may be ¼" difference in results but nothing major. Many times the only difference is the number of cloves but overall average weight close to the same. The only cloves which are not usually planted are the center ones from softnecks. They tend to produce multiple plants.
Martin
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Garlic
May 22, 2014 22:50:31 GMT -5
Post by paquebot on May 22, 2014 22:50:31 GMT -5
Unlike the hundreds of varieties which I was previously associated with, mostly only growing 2 this year. They are 300 Martin's and 100 or so Estonian Red. I note that someone here is growing ER. If it were brought commercially, probably came through me. I got them from Denmark as bulbils 10 or so years ago. Took 3 years to get a divided bulb and then they were turned over to WeGrowGarlic to build up a larger stock. They in turn sent it to several commercial growers who are now selling that beauty. Another American also got some about the same time as myself but I think that she only offered it through SSE.
Martin
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Garlic
May 23, 2014 21:46:50 GMT -5
Post by pepperhead212 on May 23, 2014 21:46:50 GMT -5
Martin,
I'm the one you saw a post from about growing the Estonian Red, and they do look great! I had never seen cloves of garlic weighing in at .70 oz, except elephant garlic, which I call fake garlic. The ER plants look even larger than the Music and Metechi, which are my two all time favorites.
So what is the "Martin" garlic you are growing? Is it something you produced? What type is it? Does it "need" a cold winter, or does it do OK with a mild winter, while still growing well after intense cold (the type I need, given the strange winters here!).
That statement about the size of the planted garlic not affecting the final size is interesting; I will have to do an experiment to prove (or disprove) this, and plant some small ones in the same row as some large ones, and weigh the final bulbs. This would be good, however, as I always assumed that large was better, and planted all of the large, and ate the small. This way, I would have more to eat! LOL I usually only had to do this with new varieties, with much smaller cloves, since my favorites rarely had any small cloves - the reason they are my favorites!
I'm glad I'm not in a warm region, where these large cloved varieties don't grow very well. I hate peeling a huge number of cloves for those Thai dishes and the like.
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Garlic
May 26, 2014 22:13:30 GMT -5
Post by paquebot on May 26, 2014 22:13:30 GMT -5
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Garlic
May 26, 2014 23:28:37 GMT -5
Post by pepperhead212 on May 26, 2014 23:28:37 GMT -5
After looking into it I remembered seeing it in catalogs, and I remember why I never tried it - rocamboles are iffy where I am, as they seem to need a cold winter. While we often get them, we also get some that don't freeze the ground at all, so I stay away from rocamboles.
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Garlic
May 27, 2014 22:33:03 GMT -5
Post by paquebot on May 27, 2014 22:33:03 GMT -5
Martin's and all other rocamboles should do well deep into Zone 8. A gardener friend in Monroeville, NJ has great results with Martin's and other rocamboles. Same with another in Eastanollee, GA.
Martin
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