Nice video, and a great tip. But there is something to watch out for when doing this that I learned the hard way after planting only the largest cloves for 15 years or more. By only using the largest cloves for seed, you are inadvertently selecting for heads with fewer cloves. If you have two bulbs the same size, the one with fewer cloves will have larger cloves, which you will choose for seed. After 10-15 years of doing this most of my garlic only had three massive cloves per plant. The problem with that is that to keep the same number of plants each year, you have to use 1/3 of your harvest for next year's seed! Since I figured this out, I've been planting the largest cloves from the bulbs that contained the largest number of cloves. My stock now gives me bulbs with 4-6 large cloves, so I only have to use 1/5 of my harvest for seed.
What we've done here in Spain for literally centuries is just tie off the plant to stop sending nutrients to the top green part and fatten up the garlic head in the ground, and it works very well. Also works with onions.
I've been growing garlic for about 5 years now, and the advice we give in Europe is that you don't feed them ANYTHING. THey don't need anything, just like onions and shallots. But for some reason many American gardening channels claim that they're nitrogen heavy and need a lot of fertilizer, it couldn't be further from the truth. These few things will increase your yield more than any fertilizer : 1) Don't plant them that deep. The tip of the clove should poke out in the air. It helps with big bulbs, as it grows outwards easier, especially in my clay soil. 2) Instead of fertilizer, you just need humus. And for that, you only need mulch. I put 15-20 cm of wood chips on my garlics when I plant them. And that's all I do. In March, there's usually a weeding chore I Have to do coz some weeds have come through usually, and in May there's usually a lack of rain in France with global warming, so they need one good soaking in May. That's it. Also, for garlic, it's useless to have ginormous heads. You want big heads ? Grow elephant garlic. But bigger heads means less flavor. Because for giant heads with normal garlic you need nitrogen, which makes the cells expand, soak up water, and dilute the taste. Of course, the heads you harvested from small cloves were too small, but the other ones are fine, and I usually get mostly this caliber. Again, just with woodchips, nothing else.
Cheers nic. I put my garlic in a bed which i had just cleared of beetroot, did not feed the soil but my garlic is looking terrific. Another few weeks to go before harvest yet, but will keep your comment in mind come october. Peace and love from Wales.
I had a garlic sprout wild in my yard this year. I've been getting onions growing wild for the past two years. I don't do anything, and it seems nature just knows what to do.
I agree (we just use good compost / soil) except for the part of global warming unless you mean that our planet is ever changing when it comes to temperature with or without man. We should care for our planet & environment and be mindful and not pollute our rivers, oceans, conserving water, energy, etc.where we can and so on, but we, nor cows, are changing the temperature or the amount of rain or snow we get. I don't understand why when people are talking about one subject, other people have to interject "global warming" into their comment. Same with movies....the last four movies we watched, they all said something about global warming. Changing everything over to electric and putting up thousands of giant windmills all over the planet is definitely not an improvement.
@@Piper7cub then you should go read on the actual science that proves man changed the Earth's climate. That myth about global warming just being a natural cycle has been disproved like 25 years ago... It is 100% mankind's doing. It's happening too rapidly, too intensely, we are the cause.
I've saved the flower seeds once and wife said to trow them on the compost. Well, I've plant them instead and harvested the biggest and healthiest crop ever. :-)
That is why I plant small cloves half-way between properly-spaced large cloves. In the spring I have an early harvest of the small ones to use as scallions or spring onions. That restores the space for larger bulbs but makes more efficient use of my beds.
Nice idea of treating smaller cloves as green garlic, nice. Too late for me to try, tho, welp, I'll try it your way in 6,5 months.Although I hope for all my heads to be huge, I chose the best straings of garlic from my last years' test.
@@MichaelRei99 Green garlic is not the same as spring onion (btw I never buy specific spring onion variety, I always have bulbing varieties but I just sometimes choose to use them for leaves. About garlic - people choose to use it as green garlic for its taste and its milder qualities, but Im not sure about putting it in between, because I need to move in there sometimes. Well I need to make my beds thinner so I can get in there from both sided... Probably yeah, but I wouldnt like to steel much space from my regular garlic. I was already thinking about putting some lettuce in between. It could act as a cover crop plus garlic just feels like too much space unsused.
Try planting some small cloves close together about 2” apart in a 9” pot. Keep moist don’t feed and let them grow through the winter into summer. Let them die back and leave in the pot till autumn. Remove from pot when your planting your garlic. They won’t have divided and will be spherical fat cloves. Plant as you would any garlic clove and harvest really big bulbs next year. It’s a phaff the first year but pays dividends if done well.
I couldn't find good seed garlic from the local co-op, so I just used store bought, softneck Chinese garlic (smaller bulbs). I added homemade compost, horse manure, leaf mold and mulched with pine needles. The necks are thick as broom handles right now, and I won't harvest for another month or so from now. Can't wait to see the bulb sizes this year
Great to see this much of a difference! The first time (2 years ago) I did garlic, I just used whatever my husband was ignoring when he selected one for cooking. So I ended up with all the teeny tiny ones. This year (or last year, I mean), I stole all the chunkiest ones so I can have a bigger harvest (and then also planted the ones he'd been ignoring in a tub indoors so I can harvest as green garlic earlier). I'll be interested to see the difference - I definitely think my garlic harvest last year was smaller than it could have been thanks to the cloves I used. Can't wait to see the results!
I had found the same thing. I don't give them great soil. But they still can grow quite large. One thing I found was that the time of planting was critical to getting large garlic. Too early and they go to flower before winter. Too late and they have no size before the cold weather comes. I am in the southern hemisphere but have found that if I plant about the second week of March the plants put on plenty of leaf and can take full advantage of the weaker winter sun and continue to grow during the cooler months. Giving a much bigger yield than plants that are put in during April which don't get enough leaf early enough.
I cut the green leaves over and over, chopped them (I do the same with my chives), and added them to a variety of foods (stews, bruschetta, cheese spreads, on top of stakes, burgers, mashed potatoes....), while the bulb gets bigger and bigger in the ground; I leave some in the ground and the following year it comes again.
Variety of garlic also makes a big difference in size . From all the varieties that I grow Music had the largest bulbs. I actually planted small to medium size Music garlic last year and they still formed extra large bulbs.
I did a very similar experiment, selecting the smallest cloves I could find and replanting the cloves that resulted. After two years they were back up to average size. The garlic variety was Mikulov, an overwintering type.
Elephant garlic is easier to grow and has even larger heads. You all should grow both. Elephant garlic isn't great for stir-fry because it requires a lot more oil, but is awesome for wetter dishes such as soups or in boiling rice. The green tops are also delicious. After a few years, you may never need to replant elephant garlic as its "babies" tend to hide in the soil after you harvest the large bulb.
Wow I was wondering why my garlic head are so tiny and the reason is I planted small garlic cloves and I did that cuz I didn't really want to give my biggest, thanks alot this accually saved me from giving up, I plant about 14 small cloves before
For decades I have saved my largest bulbs and used them to replant in Fall. As a result my bulbs are bigger and bigger. I put straw on after planting and leave it on until harvest. Prevent s frost heave in winter and keeps soil moist and cool in the heat of summer.
I take the largest clove from each bulb I harvest. Why plant so late in the season? I plant early, in Oct/Nov and have lots of leaves that mostly survive under the snow, Zone 5!. When the snow melts my garlic patch is already 5-6 inches tall.
lol you answered my exact question! I have grown garlic for decades but I never paid much attention to the size of the cloves I planted. Guess I’ll be planting my biggest cloves from now on.
I grew garlic regularly and always tried to use the biggest cloves and tried a mix of different types especially organic . Apparently the Chinese ' wash' Thier commercial garlic in Sodium Benzoate 😮😐 ....not what anyone should ever do !!! I usually grew around 60 to 80 each time . I once tried growing almost 300 bulbs but noticed the more I grew ....the weaker the flavour !! Always planted it late August /early September and harvested the following July/August. Great video and very interesting...thank you 😀👍🇬🇧
Larger cloves have weaker flavor. Selecting for larger cloves is good if youre selling by the lb. Larger cloves are also a bit easier to work with, but for home culinary use smaller has more flavorful. Also, a little hori hori trick: instead of using the tip as your starting point, measuring 6", pressing your fingers at 6" then moving the hori hori, put the 6" mark at the starting point of your measure, then your tip is exactly where you want to press it into the soil. Really speeds up planting
"Someone ring the honker alarm" had me rollin' 😂 non-gardners just don't understand how happy it genuinely makes people just digging around in plant. Top stuff my guy 😊
Great video explains a lot and it also depends upon the type of garlic you grow. There is one variety called Elephant garlic that is naturally very large but it is closer to the leek than true garlic. It is a bit milder and sweeter than normal somewhere between garlic and onion
I’ve been growing elephant garlic successfully for years in the Phoenix area, 9b. I now plant them around my roses to offer more insect protection as well as in my raised beds. You can also replant the little seed garlic or tiny cloves that the bulbs produce. It takes 2 years for them to produce cloves but it’s very easy to grow here and tasty too! Use the greens in soup.
This video comes in handy. I’ve never grown garlic before but I already have some large cloves put aside for planting because I figured bigger cloves might mean bigger bulbs. It’s autumn now so I’m looking forward to my first garlic harvest.
An offsetting aspect is the amount of leaves produced. If you plant small cloves, they will make smaller leaves and use less area. My hypothesis is that the sunlight is the limiting aspect. with small cloves you could get the same yield per unit area of plot from a larger number of plantings. The choice is then how big do you want your garlic?
I grow the hard neck garlic. The bulbs have only 4 - 7 cloves, which are big. No tiny cloves. I may plant a few tiny cloves of the Chinese garlic to use as greens. Thanks for the idea.
Interesting. I planted garlic for the first time last fall. My friend gave me large bulbs with super large cloves. I harvested bulbs a third of the size she gave me. Haven’t actually checked the clove size yet as they’re still drying. Regardless, I’ll be more than pleased with my homegrown garlic. Thanks for the tips.
Hello from Ontario! You like to experiment. Try leaving a few garlic bulbs to over winter a second year. I've tried it last fall and now (April) there are multiple shoots, as expected. Looking forward to seeing the harvest this summer. I read that the bulb should be much bigger. Al in Canada.
I accidentally missed some garlic bulbs, and they started sprouting the following autumn. I dug them up, separated them, and they grew really well. I'm keen to experiment and leave them in again. Maybe 2 times more, and see if I get even bigger cloves 😊
@@laurenecarter246 Actually not really. I did some mixed planting to prevent pests in my strawberries. I did not harvest the garlic because I wanted the strawberries, but they don't grow bigger, they only split and you get multiple smaller shoots.
We took our small cloves and planted them in our garden as perennials. They grow crowded but we eat the greens in spring, chop them in the summer and eat them again in the fall, and use the large cloves for bulb garlic.
There is a trick my grandmother use to do twisting the green part of the garlic, so doing that the feed goes to the bulb and not to the leaves, making the garlic bulb bigger. I'm in proces to do like that to, see how it goes 😜
Just my 2 cents, I added quite a few expired methylated b-complex capsules to water jugs every time I watered the garlic and also when prepping the soil it made a huge difference from previous years. Next year I'll have to try your trick out.
@@MichaelRei99 Oh BFD. AS IF anything is NEW on YT. You talk as if you expect to find some unexpected 'trick' hidden somewhere. There's nothing new under the Sun. If you believe there is then you're a bloody fool.
I l admire how gleeful you were harvesting your garlic! i was inspired to plant some in start pots after I notice a head starting to grow in my kitchen.
A very good video.garlic is easy.I’ve found that large cloves make large bulbs.I’ve been planting garlic for 15 years.some varieties are smaller. I grow a lot of German white. I still get some 3” inch bulbs but no smaller than 2”.the same garlic replanted every year.fertilizer is key at planting in fall and in the spring .
i can affirm that everything you said in this video is true, i proved it to myself; now all my wife gets to use are small cloves. soon there will be no small cloves. i planted corms last summer, not seeing any success yet; but it's been a real cold spring. i'm going to learn some more from you as a new subscriber. thanks
That's what I tell my allotment buddies: eat the small ones, plant the big ones. Eventually you should have only big ones. But it also depends on irrigation. Last year was super dry and the irrigated ones grew enormous. The ones that didn't underperformed. Some people claim that garlic doesn't need irrigating but that's incorrect when we are having drought conditions. So far this year it's been rain and rain and more rain. Good thing to grow garlic in well drained super high organic soil because with all this rain, anything less will end up with rotten garlic.
That's an interesting and informative trial. Here's another one for you (from a trial conducted by the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada). You can increase the size of your bulbs by as much as 40% if you remove the scapes as soon as they appear.
IN the fall, when the green garlic tops are still tender and have not dried out, you should cut them or bash them. This causes the growth to go to the roots and bulbs instead of the tops. This will make you harvest a larger bulb of garlic or onion, too.
The leaves are where the photosynthesis is happening. Without leaves, the plant can't make energy to grow. For bigger bulbs, you need more leaves, not less.
Is there any noticeable difference in the flavor profiles of the small vs large bulbs? Does smaller = more intense flavor and larger = milder flavor? Or vice versa?
Yes when they stay smaller, the taste is more intense so you need less. I bet nutritionwise there will be a higher concentration in the smaller ones as well.
Did you weigh the small and larger cloves before planting? Also, it may be with the smaller cloves you could have planted them on the 4" mark, something to consider. That way the final mass might have been closer to each other.
QUESTION: How can you tell which is a flower, and which is actually GARLIC? When I moved to TN there is a "wild flower" that looks exactly like a garlic scape! How do I know in this new garden growing wild, which is which, without just yanking them out?
There's just nothing like enthusiasm for gardening. Three years ago I bought a selection of Music garlic, 30 years organic, ironically, from a farm 10 minutes from where I used to live. The farm where I help out and planted them was also 30 years organic. I only planted the biggest cloves. The multiplication factor has been about 5, and they've only gotten bigger on average. This fall I'll try planting them a few inches deeper. The soil here is very rich, so I see no need to boost them further. The results speak for themselves.
I'm new here. I was actually thinking I needed to look at adding a bit more things on top of the garlic in the spring. Thank you for teaching. God bless
I clicked on this all excited, then my reaction went to: DUH, of course! I have always planted the biggest cloves of the biggest bulbs. This reminds me of a Psychology Today study, years ago. It ‘proved’ that rich people have less stress because they do not have to worry about money.
Last Autumn I've planted 200 "air-cloves" (dunno how are called the minicloves that form from the blossom) which I've got form a guy that grew them from seeds (yes, actual garlic seeds). I'll definitely pick the strongest and biggest cloves that will grow from this to make myself a good start for strong and big garlic.
@@nerfherder4284 They are also called topsets. Egytian bunching onions produce these like crazy. I have a perrennial bed of them that I never have to replant, I just let the tops fall over, they self plant.
Are you referring to what forms if scapes are left to mature on hardneck garlic? Those are then bulbils and each plant can produce at least 30 of them. When you plant these at the same time as garlic cloves, the first year they produce a roundel. Just one ball. Leave them in the ground because the next year the roundels split and produce garlic bulbs. Using bulbils is actually a good way to not introduce disease into your garlic growing area. I've got a number of garlic bulbs that I started as bulbils three years ago. Last year I had garlic bulbs but I left a few in the ground over the winter and now I have a cluster of garlic shoots from each clove of the bulbs. I also have about 60 bulbils growing plus maybe 180 garlic plants for bulbs. I like to experiment.
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@@gabriellakadar Yes, exactly. I've planted them in clusters by 20 so they are more visible. I will harvest them with normal garlic and plant them back in the Autumn to continue their growth.
@ That makes sense if the roundels need to be planted deeper than the bulbils. Although the four garlic greens clusters I've got this year were never transplanted for the past 3 years. They are not as deep down as the cloves I planted last year in November. We did have a mild winter so I don't know if the sitution would be different would the garlic bulbs have been adversely affected.
as for the smaller clove, plant them close to each other and harvest the leaf, this make the best garlic butter ive had, not too strong, subtle and perfect as seasonning.
What a fantastic video. New sub! Friendly FYI … You’re using the term “clove” properly, however the correct term for the clump of cloves is “BULB”, rather than head. “Head” makes more sense when used to describe above ground crops like lettuce. 👍
I just found you and started following you. I have always wanted to grow garlic. After seeing your video, I am so excited to try growing my own garlic.
My own current garlic experiments: A- planting the smallest cloves during summer instead of autumn. Are they still going to produce small bulbs with small cloves, OR will the bulbs be larger, and IF SO are they the result of larger cloves or a higher number of cloves - only time will tell. B- re-sprouting garlic from base-stubs (similar to re-sprouting onion from bases). Are they going to grow like a clove or like a bulbil - only time will tell. C- how many bulbils can I get from the scapes? D- can I get viable true garlic seeds from the scapes? And if so, what type of novel garlic am I going to be looking at? Only time will tell.
There was a large cash prize offered for many years (I don't know if it still is) for true garlic seed. As far as I know, no one ever collected it. Garlic just doesn't make seeds.
@@christajennings3828 but I can buy them online. TGS. It's not the easiest protocol. True. It can be and is done. Just difficult due to the type of garlic selected. Wait until you learn about TPS
@@christajennings3828 Garlic can relatively easily be forced into making seeds instead of bulbils. It's just not something most home gardeners bother with. For more information, check into the work of Dr. Philipp Simon, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) research leader and professor of horticulture at the University of Wisconsin; Dr. Maria Jenderek, Plant Physiologist, USDA Agriculture Research Service, Fort Collins, Colorado; and Barbara Hellier, Horticulture Crops Curator, USDA Agriculture Research Service, Pullman, Washington.
We have been growing our own garlic for the past 7-8 years. Can’t beat the taste. My kids love pulling them out. We live in Northern ON. So far so good.. 🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄
I eat my small ones, sell the medium size in market and plant the largest. They get bigger every year. I put in a heaping tablespoon of bonemeal or fish emulsion/ bonemeal when I plant.
No surprise there!!! Genetic selection always wins. Been trying to work on growing garlic for the 2nd year now and I am trying to work with nature here since we have extreme hot and freezing cold here in the desert and garlic seems to mature in 10-12 months... Since you're in Canada, any advice to keep them warm and keep them cool during summer? thanks!!!
Difference in intensity of flavour between large and small? If you need to use more, or if the larger cloves spoil before you've used them up, then the difference in size is academic only.
I have a real problem with storage as it is a new house with no sheds, so I buy sets the sets seemed to be big but the garlic was small - meanly strong though! I grow from September through to July - a friend said they might give me some jumbo garlic from the US - I hope so because the tax involved for buying from US - France is at least 25 bucks on top of postage!
WOW, exactly what I have always thought! Thanks for proving common advice that large cloves grow into larger plants which grow larger bulb clusters. I don't understand your surprise and excitement about this "tip".
I agree with your general conclusion of larger cloves yielding larger garlic; seems obvious, visually. What I'd like to know is the average weight of each smaller garlic compared to the average weight of each larger garlic. How do these two average weights compare? Are the larger garlic twice the weight (200%) of the smaller garlic, or some other percent?
Quite interesting. I was given a variety of garlic that is huge. It looks like an onion. It's time for me to grow some more. Thanks for the video. Greetings from Brazil.
Our cloves are way bigger than yours, and we gave them zero fertiliser! We put garlic after potatoes in the same soil so it has enough fertiliser that is left from patatoes. Just cleaned the ground 2 times, and we left the third grass around it to create more moisture! I think we can give this amount of attention to garlic just if you have a very small garden. If you have 100 kg of garlic in the ground, it's a totally different story. But we are from the mountain area in Croatia, and we have a super clean soil, and we use old Croatian garlic that is in my family over 100 years. Tipical clove is 60 grams up to 90 grams and even more.
@Naomiisrael123 I didn't wanna come like fertiliser is bad!, its very important, but made distinction between having small garden and big fields. We just rotate crops, and we dont usually give any fertiliser to any allium crop.
When they are fresh out of the ground, they are excellent! Just was the soil off, top and tail the whole thing and slice it into a soup, without peeling or separating the cloves.
Nice video, and a great tip. But there is something to watch out for when doing this that I learned the hard way after planting only the largest cloves for 15 years or more. By only using the largest cloves for seed, you are inadvertently selecting for heads with fewer cloves. If you have two bulbs the same size, the one with fewer cloves will have larger cloves, which you will choose for seed. After 10-15 years of doing this most of my garlic only had three massive cloves per plant. The problem with that is that to keep the same number of plants each year, you have to use 1/3 of your harvest for next year's seed!
Since I figured this out, I've been planting the largest cloves from the bulbs that contained the largest number of cloves. My stock now gives me bulbs with 4-6 large cloves, so I only have to use 1/5 of my harvest for seed.
Thank for posting this. I was wondering about what you mention. I have had that issue come up.
This is really interesting. Good thinking.
Thanks for the expert advice! I'm really curious about long term selection and land races.
Great tip. I wondered about that. Like you, I’m more interested in number of cloves than size alone.
this is an excellent selective breeding tip
What we've done here in Spain for literally centuries is just tie off the plant to stop sending nutrients to the top green part and fatten up the garlic head in the ground, and it works very well. Also works with onions.
Should I just snip the stems back?
@@billhill4929 NO. TIE the top they wrote... NOT CUT IT OFF! SMH!!!
@@cindys.w.8566 it was a fair enough question, no need to be so rude!🙄
When would we want to tie them off?
@@cindys.w.8566 no, they did NOT say tie the top. Which gets to my question. WHERE do you tie them off? top, halfway or bottom.
I've been growing garlic for about 5 years now, and the advice we give in Europe is that you don't feed them ANYTHING. THey don't need anything, just like onions and shallots. But for some reason many American gardening channels claim that they're nitrogen heavy and need a lot of fertilizer, it couldn't be further from the truth. These few things will increase your yield more than any fertilizer :
1) Don't plant them that deep. The tip of the clove should poke out in the air. It helps with big bulbs, as it grows outwards easier, especially in my clay soil.
2) Instead of fertilizer, you just need humus. And for that, you only need mulch. I put 15-20 cm of wood chips on my garlics when I plant them. And that's all I do. In March, there's usually a weeding chore I Have to do coz some weeds have come through usually, and in May there's usually a lack of rain in France with global warming, so they need one good soaking in May. That's it.
Also, for garlic, it's useless to have ginormous heads. You want big heads ? Grow elephant garlic. But bigger heads means less flavor. Because for giant heads with normal garlic you need nitrogen, which makes the cells expand, soak up water, and dilute the taste. Of course, the heads you harvested from small cloves were too small, but the other ones are fine, and I usually get mostly this caliber. Again, just with woodchips, nothing else.
Cheers nic. I put my garlic in a bed which i had just cleared of beetroot, did not feed the soil but my garlic is looking terrific. Another few weeks to go before harvest yet, but will keep your comment in mind come october. Peace and love from Wales.
I had a garlic sprout wild in my yard this year. I've been getting onions growing wild for the past two years. I don't do anything, and it seems nature just knows what to do.
I agree except for the global warming part
I agree (we just use good compost / soil) except for the part of global warming unless you mean that our planet is ever changing when it comes to temperature with or without man. We should care for our planet & environment and be mindful and not pollute our rivers, oceans, conserving water, energy, etc.where we can and so on, but we, nor cows, are changing the temperature or the amount of rain or snow we get. I don't understand why when people are talking about one subject, other people have to interject "global warming" into their comment. Same with movies....the last four movies we watched, they all said something about global warming. Changing everything over to electric and putting up thousands of giant windmills all over the planet is definitely not an improvement.
@@Piper7cub then you should go read on the actual science that proves man changed the Earth's climate. That myth about global warming just being a natural cycle has been disproved like 25 years ago... It is 100% mankind's doing. It's happening too rapidly, too intensely, we are the cause.
Your giggling enthusiasm is totally infectious, i love that you love what you are doing
Gee! Thanks Jon :) Sure right about that, definitely love what I am doing! Thanks for watching
I love that you were amazed by the size of the garlics, when I was actually amazed by the quality of your soil. 👏🏼
I've saved the flower seeds once and wife said to trow them on the compost. Well, I've plant them instead and harvested the biggest and healthiest crop ever. :-)
Listen to your wife, Adam did.
So glad to hear! Good luck this gardening season and thanks for watching :)
I threw mine in the compost and grew in the edge of the compost without planting! Awesome
Nice. So let's just took two years?
I use the flower seeds in salads ❤
That is why I plant small cloves half-way between properly-spaced large cloves. In the spring I have an early harvest of the small ones to use as scallions or spring onions. That restores the space for larger bulbs but makes more efficient use of my beds.
Nice idea of treating smaller cloves as green garlic, nice. Too late for me to try, tho, welp, I'll try it your way in 6,5 months.Although I hope for all my heads to be huge, I chose the best straings of garlic from my last years' test.
Nice. There's room & a use for everyone. =)
Why not just plant spring onions in between . The garlic.
@@MichaelRei99 I could - might try that. Then I would just keep the small cloves for cooking instead of planting.
@@MichaelRei99 Green garlic is not the same as spring onion (btw I never buy specific spring onion variety, I always have bulbing varieties but I just sometimes choose to use them for leaves.
About garlic - people choose to use it as green garlic for its taste and its milder qualities, but Im not sure about putting it in between, because I need to move in there sometimes. Well I need to make my beds thinner so I can get in there from both sided...
Probably yeah, but I wouldnt like to steel much space from my regular garlic. I was already thinking about putting some lettuce in between. It could act as a cover crop plus garlic just feels like too much space unsused.
Try planting some small cloves close together about 2” apart in a 9” pot. Keep moist don’t feed and let them grow through the winter into summer. Let them die back and leave in the pot till autumn. Remove from pot when your planting your garlic. They won’t have divided and will be spherical fat cloves. Plant as you would any garlic clove and harvest really big bulbs next year. It’s a phaff the first year but pays dividends if done well.
I love how you giggle during harvesting!
That's the reason why I want to do gardening too. I want to feel the same way.
I couldn't find good seed garlic from the local co-op, so I just used store bought, softneck Chinese garlic (smaller bulbs). I added homemade compost, horse manure, leaf mold and mulched with pine needles. The necks are thick as broom handles right now, and I won't harvest for another month or so from now. Can't wait to see the bulb sizes this year
Sounds like there might be other tips. I remember hearing there're dozens of varities though, so . . .
@@tombolo4120 tricks?
Great to see this much of a difference! The first time (2 years ago) I did garlic, I just used whatever my husband was ignoring when he selected one for cooking. So I ended up with all the teeny tiny ones. This year (or last year, I mean), I stole all the chunkiest ones so I can have a bigger harvest (and then also planted the ones he'd been ignoring in a tub indoors so I can harvest as green garlic earlier). I'll be interested to see the difference - I definitely think my garlic harvest last year was smaller than it could have been thanks to the cloves I used. Can't wait to see the results!
I had found the same thing. I don't give them great soil. But they still can grow quite large. One thing I found was that the time of planting was critical to getting large garlic. Too early and they go to flower before winter. Too late and they have no size before the cold weather comes. I am in the southern hemisphere but have found that if I plant about the second week of March the plants put on plenty of leaf and can take full advantage of the weaker winter sun and continue to grow during the cooler months. Giving a much bigger yield than plants that are put in during April which don't get enough leaf early enough.
Love the seriously geeky research gardener approach. ❤
I cut the green leaves over and over, chopped them (I do the same with my chives), and added them to a variety of foods (stews, bruschetta, cheese spreads, on top of stakes, burgers, mashed potatoes....), while the bulb gets bigger and bigger in the ground; I leave some in the ground and the following year it comes again.
heat in butter with basil (baby, early) leaves
Great video. Every time you uproot a big garlic, I'm grinning from ear to ear. Thanks.
Variety of garlic also makes a big difference in size . From all the varieties that I grow Music had the largest bulbs. I actually planted small to medium size Music garlic last year and they still formed extra large bulbs.
Music is a great variety! Great to hear about the garlic garden successes! woot!
I did a very similar experiment, selecting the smallest cloves I could find and replanting the cloves that resulted. After two years they were back up to average size. The garlic variety was Mikulov, an overwintering type.
Interesting! Thanks for watching :)
Elephant garlic is easier to grow and has even larger heads. You all should grow both. Elephant garlic isn't great for stir-fry because it requires a lot more oil, but is awesome for wetter dishes such as soups or in boiling rice. The green tops are also delicious. After a few years, you may never need to replant elephant garlic as its "babies" tend to hide in the soil after you harvest the large bulb.
Wow I was wondering why my garlic head are so tiny and the reason is I planted small garlic cloves and I did that cuz I didn't really want to give my biggest, thanks alot this accually saved me from giving up, I plant about 14 small cloves before
For decades I have saved my largest bulbs and used them to replant in Fall. As a result my bulbs are bigger and bigger. I put straw on after planting and leave it on until harvest. Prevent s frost heave in winter and keeps soil moist and cool in the heat of summer.
Incredible man! Great energy
Thank-you for weighing out the yield.
I take the largest clove from each bulb I harvest. Why plant so late in the season? I plant early, in Oct/Nov and have lots of leaves that mostly survive under the snow, Zone 5!. When the snow melts my garlic patch is already 5-6 inches tall.
lol you answered my exact question! I have grown garlic for decades but I never paid much attention to the size of the cloves I planted. Guess I’ll be planting my biggest cloves from now on.
I grew garlic regularly and always tried to use the biggest cloves and tried a mix of different types especially organic .
Apparently the Chinese ' wash' Thier commercial garlic in Sodium Benzoate 😮😐 ....not what anyone should ever do !!!
I usually grew around 60 to 80 each time .
I once tried growing almost 300 bulbs but noticed the more I grew ....the weaker the flavour !!
Always planted it late August /early September and harvested the following July/August.
Great video and very interesting...thank you 😀👍🇬🇧
Larger cloves have weaker flavor. Selecting for larger cloves is good if youre selling by the lb. Larger cloves are also a bit easier to work with, but for home culinary use smaller has more flavorful.
Also, a little hori hori trick: instead of using the tip as your starting point, measuring 6", pressing your fingers at 6" then moving the hori hori, put the 6" mark at the starting point of your measure, then your tip is exactly where you want to press it into the soil. Really speeds up planting
My #1 question. Thank you for answering that!
"Someone ring the honker alarm" had me rollin' 😂 non-gardners just don't understand how happy it genuinely makes people just digging around in plant. Top stuff my guy 😊
Great video explains a lot and it also depends upon the type of garlic you grow. There is one variety called Elephant garlic that is naturally very large but it is closer to the leek than true garlic. It is a bit milder and sweeter than normal somewhere between garlic and onion
It’s not like a leek it is absolutely a leek.
I planted two this year first time ever.😂😊
I’ve been growing elephant garlic successfully for years in the Phoenix area, 9b. I now plant them around my roses to offer more insect protection as well as in my raised beds. You can also replant the little seed garlic or tiny cloves that the bulbs produce. It takes 2 years for them to produce cloves but it’s very easy to grow here and tasty too! Use the greens in soup.
This video comes in handy. I’ve never grown garlic before but I already have some large cloves put aside for planting because I figured bigger cloves might mean bigger bulbs. It’s autumn now so I’m looking forward to my first garlic harvest.
So much joy from pulling garlic from the soil 😅🙌🏻
An offsetting aspect is the amount of leaves produced. If you plant small cloves, they will make smaller leaves and use less area. My hypothesis is that the sunlight is the limiting aspect. with small cloves you could get the same yield per unit area of plot from a larger number of plantings. The choice is then how big do you want your garlic?
I was super happy with my clove sizes and found them perfect for the dishes I was regularly making at home :)
I like to plant the tiny cloves that are too small to be worth the time to peel and eat and then continuously harvest the greens. Delicious.
I like that idea...think i'll try it..thanks
I grow the hard neck garlic. The bulbs have only 4 - 7 cloves, which are big. No tiny cloves. I may plant a few tiny cloves of the Chinese garlic to use as greens. Thanks for the idea.
I always say, plant the best and eat the rest!
Klaus
Love that!!
Not chwab 😂he would not give you such an advise
Interesting. I planted garlic for the first time last fall. My friend gave me large bulbs with super large cloves. I harvested bulbs a third of the size she gave me. Haven’t actually checked the clove size yet as they’re still drying. Regardless, I’ll be more than pleased with my homegrown garlic. Thanks for the tips.
Hello from Ontario! You like to experiment. Try leaving a few garlic bulbs
to over winter a second year. I've tried it last fall and now (April) there are multiple shoots, as expected. Looking forward to seeing the harvest this summer. I read that the bulb should be much bigger. Al in Canada.
I accidentally missed some garlic bulbs, and they started sprouting the following autumn. I dug them up, separated them, and they grew really well. I'm keen to experiment and leave them in again. Maybe 2 times more, and see if I get even bigger cloves 😊
Funny. I always miss a few that come back by themselves.
@@laurenecarter246 Actually not really. I did some mixed planting to prevent pests in my strawberries. I did not harvest the garlic because I wanted the strawberries, but they don't grow bigger, they only split and you get multiple smaller shoots.
@@donaldduck830 oh very interesting. Thank you for letting me know 😊
@@donaldduck830 But you do get multiple bulbs all together in a cluster. I've got a few of them this year.
When performing selection, there's always pros and cons. Keeping good records each year is very helpful.
We took our small cloves and planted them in our garden as perennials. They grow crowded but we eat the greens in spring, chop them in the summer and eat them again in the fall, and use the large cloves for bulb garlic.
Great idea! Thanks for sharing :) I love the scapes on the top!
There is a trick my grandmother use to do twisting the green part of the garlic, so doing that the feed goes to the bulb and not to the leaves, making the garlic bulb bigger. I'm in proces to do like that to, see how it goes 😜
Twisting? Can u explain more? 🤔
I’ve heard that too. It’s a couple of weeks before you harvest.
Practically you grab the green leaves twisting and laing down on the ground
mine are significantly larger... Russian Red in Vancouver,, 140 heads last year. So easy to grow!
I harvested my garlic today. Had the same reaction with my big bulbs too 😁
Garlic is one of the only plants that clones itself.. nice presentation
Just my 2 cents, I added quite a few expired methylated b-complex capsules to water jugs every time I watered the garlic and also when prepping the soil it made a huge difference from previous years. Next year I'll have to try your trick out.
It’s not his trick . That’s been well known for a long time.
@@MichaelRei99 Oh BFD. AS IF anything is NEW on YT. You talk as if you expect to find some unexpected 'trick' hidden somewhere. There's nothing new under the Sun. If you believe there is then you're a bloody fool.
Sounds expensive
I l admire how gleeful you were harvesting your garlic! i was inspired to plant some in start pots after I notice a head starting to grow in my kitchen.
A very good video.garlic is easy.I’ve found that large cloves make large bulbs.I’ve been planting garlic for 15 years.some varieties are smaller. I grow a lot of German white. I still get some 3” inch bulbs but no smaller than 2”.the same garlic replanted every year.fertilizer is key at planting in fall and in the spring .
Thank you for sharing! Glad you enjoyed it :)
Love your joy and passion in and for the garden! Good stuff.
i can affirm that everything you said in this video is true, i proved it to myself; now all my wife gets to use are small cloves. soon there will be no small cloves. i planted corms last summer, not seeing any success yet; but it's been a real cold spring. i'm going to learn some more from you as a new subscriber. thanks
That's what I tell my allotment buddies: eat the small ones, plant the big ones. Eventually you should have only big ones.
But it also depends on irrigation. Last year was super dry and the irrigated ones grew enormous. The ones that didn't
underperformed. Some people claim that garlic doesn't need irrigating but that's incorrect when we are having drought conditions. So far this year it's been rain and rain and more rain. Good thing to grow garlic in well drained super high organic soil because with all this rain, anything less will end up with rotten garlic.
That's an interesting and informative trial. Here's another one for you (from a trial conducted by the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada). You can increase the size of your bulbs by as much as 40% if you remove the scapes as soon as they appear.
Oh also very interesting! Thanks for watching :)
I will do that this year, missed it last year and they had already curled around, result.....smaller bulbs...
IN the fall, when the green garlic tops are still tender and have not dried out, you should cut them or bash them. This causes the growth to go to the roots and bulbs instead of the tops. This will make you harvest a larger bulb of garlic or onion, too.
The leaves are where the photosynthesis is happening. Without leaves, the plant can't make energy to grow. For bigger bulbs, you need more leaves, not less.
I’m so happy for you ❤
Thank you so much for watching :)
Is there any noticeable difference in the flavor profiles of the small vs large bulbs? Does smaller = more intense flavor and larger = milder flavor? Or vice versa?
I'm not 100% sure - but think I might have to do a taste test to find out! haha
@@MindandSoil Please do, it'd be a good follow up video. 😀
This would be my question too.
Yes when they stay smaller, the taste is more intense so you need less. I bet nutritionwise there will be a higher concentration in the smaller ones as well.
@@MindandSoil how the taste
Got the giggles from your reaction 👍🏽 Congrats on those beautiful garlic!!
Would have loved to see what percentage of the cloves in the large heads were considered jumbo.
Great job. Thanks for the teaching. Bravo
What type of soil shift u use and fo u fertilise please
Well done from Ireland
Excellent information! Many thanks
Did you weigh the small and larger cloves before planting? Also, it may be with the smaller cloves you could have planted them on the 4" mark, something to consider. That way the final mass might have been closer to each other.
Nice experiment, thank you!
Welcome! Thanks for watching :)
QUESTION: How can you tell which is a flower, and which is actually GARLIC? When I moved to TN there is a "wild flower" that looks exactly like a garlic scape! How do I know in this new garden growing wild, which is which, without just yanking them out?
Thank you for doing this, I wanted to do this growing season myself. Saved me mate👍
OMG I've wondered about this. Thanks for showing us results!
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching :)
There's just nothing like enthusiasm for gardening. Three years ago I bought a selection of Music garlic, 30 years organic, ironically, from a farm 10 minutes from where I used to live. The farm where I help out and planted them was also 30 years organic. I only planted the biggest cloves. The multiplication factor has been about 5, and they've only gotten bigger on average. This fall I'll try planting them a few inches deeper. The soil here is very rich, so I see no need to boost them further. The results speak for themselves.
Great experiment!
Thanks so much Leslie!
I'm new here. I was actually thinking I needed to look at adding a bit more things on top of the garlic in the spring. Thank you for teaching. God bless
I clicked on this all excited, then my reaction went to: DUH, of course! I have always planted the biggest cloves of the biggest bulbs. This reminds me of a Psychology Today study, years ago. It ‘proved’ that rich people have less stress because they do not have to worry about money.
Yeah I like how he is pretending he discovered something. This has been a well known fact for a long time.
@@MichaelRei99 No need for the snark....people come on youtube to learn new things and this will be new to many
@@snazzyd8866yep
Last Autumn I've planted 200 "air-cloves" (dunno how are called the minicloves that form from the blossom) which I've got form a guy that grew them from seeds (yes, actual garlic seeds). I'll definitely pick the strongest and biggest cloves that will grow from this to make myself a good start for strong and big garlic.
I've always heard them called pips.
@@nerfherder4284 They are also called topsets.
Egytian bunching onions produce these like crazy.
I have a perrennial bed of them that I never have to replant, I just let the tops fall over, they self plant.
Are you referring to what forms if scapes are left to mature on hardneck garlic? Those are then bulbils and each plant can
produce at least 30 of them. When you plant these at the same time as garlic cloves, the first year they produce a roundel.
Just one ball. Leave them in the ground because the next year the roundels split and produce garlic bulbs.
Using bulbils is actually a good way to not introduce disease into your garlic growing area. I've got a number of garlic
bulbs that I started as bulbils three years ago. Last year I had garlic bulbs but I left a few in the ground over the winter
and now I have a cluster of garlic shoots from each clove of the bulbs. I also have about 60 bulbils growing plus maybe 180 garlic plants for bulbs. I like to experiment.
@@gabriellakadar Yes, exactly. I've planted them in clusters by 20 so they are more visible. I will harvest them with normal garlic and plant them back in the Autumn to continue their growth.
@ That makes sense if the roundels need to be planted deeper than the bulbils. Although the four garlic greens clusters I've got this year were never transplanted for the past 3 years. They are not as deep down as the cloves I planted last year in November. We did have a mild winter so I don't know if the sitution would be different would the garlic bulbs have been adversely affected.
as for the smaller clove, plant them close to each other and harvest the leaf, this make the best garlic butter ive had, not too strong, subtle and perfect as seasonning.
Brilliant!!!!:thank you!
Hello, good experiment, i will try that next season here in the U K .
Hi, im from croatia, mediterranean. I planted 5 kilos and got only 1 kilo haha. We call it, right hand, left pocket haha
Thanks for sharing!
Woo! My pleasure!
Talk about data-driven results! I did this this year and my garlic is waist high now with very large stalks. Can’t wait for the results. Great video!
Wow, very interesting results.
What a fantastic video. New sub!
Friendly FYI … You’re using the term “clove” properly, however the correct term for the clump of cloves is “BULB”, rather than head. “Head” makes more sense when used to describe above ground crops like lettuce. 👍
I just found you and started following you. I have always wanted to grow garlic. After seeing your video, I am so excited to try growing my own garlic.
Great! So glad to hear :) Wishing you a great gardening season and thanks for watching!
When the plants take off again in the Spring, work a little bone meal ( the P in NPK ) into the garlic bed.
My own current garlic experiments:
A- planting the smallest cloves during summer instead of autumn. Are they still going to produce small bulbs with small cloves, OR will the bulbs be larger, and IF SO are they the result of larger cloves or a higher number of cloves - only time will tell.
B- re-sprouting garlic from base-stubs (similar to re-sprouting onion from bases). Are they going to grow like a clove or like a bulbil - only time will tell.
C- how many bulbils can I get from the scapes?
D- can I get viable true garlic seeds from the scapes? And if so, what type of novel garlic am I going to be looking at? Only time will tell.
There was a large cash prize offered for many years (I don't know if it still is) for true garlic seed. As far as I know, no one ever collected it. Garlic just doesn't make seeds.
@@christajennings3828 but I can buy them online. TGS.
It's not the easiest protocol. True. It can be and is done.
Just difficult due to the type of garlic selected.
Wait until you learn about TPS
UPDATE on protocol A;
Coming out of Winter.
Short plants. Thicker stems than larger clove planted in early Autumn.
Strong plants.
@@christajennings3828 Garlic can relatively easily be forced into making seeds instead of bulbils. It's just not something most home gardeners bother with. For more information, check into the work of Dr. Philipp Simon, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) research leader and professor of horticulture at the University of Wisconsin; Dr. Maria Jenderek, Plant Physiologist, USDA Agriculture Research Service, Fort Collins, Colorado; and Barbara Hellier, Horticulture Crops Curator, USDA Agriculture Research Service, Pullman, Washington.
Nice harvest and soil. Was this stiff neck garlic which you planted?
We have been growing our own garlic for the past 7-8 years. Can’t beat the taste. My kids love pulling them out. We live in Northern ON. So far so good.. 🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄🧄
Glad to see you know the best medicine on the planet
Great video
You bet! Soul- food. Thanks for watching :)
I eat my small ones, sell the medium size in market and plant the largest. They get bigger every year. I put in a heaping tablespoon of bonemeal or fish emulsion/ bonemeal when I plant.
Where do you live and when do you plant? How deep?
@@kurtdowney1489 Zone 4. N Idaho. 3 inches deep with 4 inches of hay mulch. First week of October.
@@robertdouglas8895 Thank you I am in Colorado very short growing season and am really struggling.
May know when the exact time to plant garlic and when the exact time to harvest thank you very much for the I
Imformation
No surprise there!!! Genetic selection always wins. Been trying to work on growing garlic for the 2nd year now and I am trying to work with nature here since we have extreme hot and freezing cold here in the desert and garlic seems to mature in 10-12 months... Since you're in Canada, any advice to keep them warm and keep them cool during summer? thanks!!!
Great test thanks. Have you ever tried tying off the tops as another viewer suggested? I think I will do both.
Difference in intensity of flavour between large and small? If you need to use more, or if the larger cloves spoil before you've used them up, then the difference in size is academic only.
If you want to experiment (I did with amazing results), plant in the earliest spring possible. Very little growth actually happens during the winter.
I have a real problem with storage as it is a new house with no sheds, so I buy sets the sets seemed to be big but the garlic was small - meanly strong though! I grow from September through to July - a friend said they might give me some jumbo garlic from the US - I hope so because the tax involved for buying from US - France is at least 25 bucks on top of postage!
WOW, exactly what I have always thought! Thanks for proving common advice that large cloves grow into larger plants which grow larger bulb clusters. I don't understand your surprise and excitement about this "tip".
What is the best fertilizer for growing garlic.
I agree with your general conclusion of larger cloves yielding larger garlic; seems obvious, visually.
What I'd like to know is the average weight of each smaller garlic compared to the average weight of each larger garlic. How do these two average weights compare? Are the larger garlic twice the weight (200%) of the smaller garlic, or some other percent?
Quite interesting. I was given a variety of garlic that is huge. It looks like an onion. It's time for me to grow some more. Thanks for the video.
Greetings from Brazil.
Woo hoo! Thanks for watching!
I love your enthusiasm,it made me smile 😊 I’m about to grow garlic for the first time. Thank you, I love it.
Dang. I’m just getting started raising garlic, so this is going to be helpful.
You are right always plant the largest cloves
what is your superfood?
Real great scientific approach!
Wonderful experiment on garlic. Thank you
So glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching :)
I have 136 hard neck Music Garlic that I just cut the scapes on. I have 219 of Soft neck Transylvania coming. Cant wait to see the harvest this year.
What a wonderful Samba Festival.
Have a great weekend friend.
New friend from New Jersey, USA.
Our cloves are way bigger than yours, and we gave them zero fertiliser! We put garlic after potatoes in the same soil so it has enough fertiliser that is left from patatoes. Just cleaned the ground 2 times, and we left the third grass around it to create more moisture! I think we can give this amount of attention to garlic just if you have a very small garden. If you have 100 kg of garlic in the ground, it's a totally different story. But we are from the mountain area in Croatia, and we have a super clean soil, and we use old Croatian garlic that is in my family over 100 years. Tipical clove is 60 grams up to 90 grams and even more.
So you fertilized..the natural way.. still fertilization.
@Naomiisrael123 I didn't wanna come like fertiliser is bad!, its very important, but made distinction between having small garden and big fields. We just rotate crops, and we dont usually give any fertiliser to any allium crop.
The type of Variety really makes a big difference in how big the cloves grow.
When they are fresh out of the ground, they are excellent! Just was the soil off, top and tail the whole thing and slice it into a soup, without peeling or separating the cloves.