Ned, I hope all is well. I never knew it took two years to grow garlic but I appreciate it even more now. Thank you for this experience. I hope to harvest a bounty of garlic in my not too distant future.
Great video , thank you . This is our second year saving our own bulbils ( it’s great from one plant got even 60 miniature cloves ) . Some bulbils from last year grow in pots now but still looking like grass or young onion seedlings .
It's REALLY interesting just note that to get REAL seeds might be very hard your first occurrences trying to get them to seed. Because you haven't started a biodiversity for your area. But once you DO it's be surely a food security not to be reckon with. :)
If you leave them in the ground, will they grow into bigger rounds or a head of garlic next year? Why do you take them out only to put them into the ground again?
Yeah I’m thinking same thing 🤔 It’s prob got to dry out completely I’m guessing. So maybe it needs to be dried out so it finish its life cycle. I know if you leave them in ground they can rot. It happened to some I planted years ago. I guess if you have them in pots you could leave them in pot and just not water them 🤔 I will have to look into it cos it’s a lot of extra work lol.
Because he broadcast the bulbils like you would grass seed to save time and space. If left together, there wouldn't be enough space for each one to grow to their potential. Replanting them when they are trying to die back down to the bulb could cause them to rot or force regrowth too early. Letting them dry so that all of the energy from the above ground portion goes back into the bulb gives them more energy to start growing when replanted at the proper time and spacing.
Very informative on how to be actually doing this. As it stands I heard it's very hard to get them to do this with the first occurrences to going to seed for the area of your self-grown garlics.
Yes, it is hard. I haven't had it happen yet. There is a company that has successfully done it. The first generation they had a very small germination rate. A couple of generations later they are getting close to 100% germination with the seed. You then have to grow out the garlic. There will be different characteristics with every different seed. From there you can get rid of the ones you don't like and you can continue to develop the strains you do like.
I would go as far to saying it's something to be explored more to make sure garlic varieties can be secured, especially considering everything going on these days and beyond. Instead of everyone "just" growing garlic (through cloning with cloves).
Thanks for the video Ned. I have a question: How much concern is there that bulblis collected from the flower stalk might be cross pollinated with other garlics flowing at the same time? I just collected bulblis from the roots a few minutes ago and got 60 off of 18 plants. Being I have two types of garlic growing I'm concerned that the flower bulblets could be cross pollenated. Thanks!
Garlic bulbils are not seed. They are basically miniature cloves and are genetically the same as the cloves. When you plant a clove or a bulbil, you are planting a clone of the plant. Garlic can cross pollinate and produce seed but it doesn’t tend to.
Did you pull them so you can vernalize them in the refrigerator to ensure that it will clove or something and put them back in the ground? I’m assuming it doesn’t get cold enough where you are that’s why you pulled them out?
As long as you fall plant, it'll get enough chill hours that way. Vernalization is only required for warmer areas that are growing hard-necks (at 400 chill hours verses 80 for soft-necks) OR if you are re-planting in the spring instead of the fall.
Liam, just wait until the ground is workable and then plant them outside. They can be planted in a row about 1 inch apart. Likely they will grow into rounds in the first year. Replant them in the late fall and then the following year you will have small heads of garlic.
You indicated that two of the varieties were hard to find and you could not find seed garlic for them, but never indicated what the varieties were. What were those hard to find varieties? Also, I'm pretty sure it is pronounced "bulb-ils" not "byou-bills" but I may be wrong. I tried producing "true garlic seed" this summer for the second time and actually got a few seeds. I'm hoping for some luck with germination but am not holding out much hope. Cheers and I hope your garlic stores well into the new year!
Hi Tom, they were Vekak and Rosewood. I believe you have the correct pronunciation. ;) Good luck with the seeds!!! Hope to give it a go this coming year. My planting stock looks strong so I'm hoping for a great spring with plenty of good strong plants.
My partner and I do some market gardening and are planning on planting ~2000 cloves this fall (in a week or two up her in Southwestern Ontario). We also have nice looking seed garlic this year. We currently grow around 12 varieties and I just procured around 12-17 more varieties this fall at a local garlic festival. I'm most excited about the creole variety I got called Aglio Rosso. Nice to see another garlic nerd, nerding out talking about garlic. Cheers!
Aglio Rosso is a creole variety and apparently does not get overly large in the northern latitudes. With that being said, I was quite pleased with how it turned out and I have expanded my stock from a couple bulbs to over 100 bulbs. Some bulbs were smaller than others but I would say there were quite a few that were "medium sized" that I was pleased with. Those ones are my planting stock for next year. I have not eaten much of it as I was just trying to build up my seed stocks but it has a warm heat and a nice garlicky finish when raw. It would be excellent in salad dressings. I will have to cook with it soon.
@@tombutler3569I’m in Ontario as well. Do you sell seed garlic? I’m looking for different varieties. Currently I only have one and don’t even know what variety, just know it’s a hard neck. I’m going to plant some bulbils this year and going to try get true seed next year.
Hey Ned Great video, thanks for the info. What zone are you located in? And also what variety garlic is that in the right bucket? That variety has a quick turnaround from Bulbil to big garlic round.
Is it possible to grow rounds from garlic cloves instead of bulbils? I have a bunch of garlic from last fall's harvest. I want to plant the cloves in the spring so they grow into rounds. How do I do that. thanks
Rounds are the precursor to cloves. Think of rounds as teenager garlic plants. Planting a clove will give more cloves as the cloves you plant are clones of an adult plant that will always split itself into multiple adults. You can't force an adult to revert back to a teenager, you have to start with a bulbil. Simply let some of your cloves set scapes and plant the bulbils that they produce to get rounds.
Yes it is possible. Planting smaller cloves i spring or early summer will most likely give you rounds bigger than the cloves you planted. Plant these in fall👍
@@danielsmith336 Two words to be aware of, soft-necks are HARD to produce "to go to seed" and even hard-necks will be difficult to start producing REAL seeds so they might need to keep at it before they got them for their area.
You can plant them in the fall as well. These rounds were harvested in the fall. I cured them in the basement over the winter and then planted them as soon as I could work the ground. If you harvest the rounds early in time to cure them for 30-60 days you can plant them in the fall. Planting them in the fall (a couple of weeks before a hard frost) you may find that they grow larger or mature sooner the following year.
To be fair, it's HARD to get REAL seeds out of them, it's takes generations of the garlics to get better at this. Even though it's much easier for them to seed at all (even though majority of them will be "fake" seeds).
You could and they would be fine. However, they would be smaller- you dig them up and replant them so they have the proper spacing so they can grow to full size.
You could, but in 3 years there won't be enough room to develop individual heads. With bulbils you can plant them tightly- using less room while they grow out. Then, after they are bigger (after 1-2 years), you can plant them 6" or so apart so they have the room to develop.
I see, thank you for sharing. By the way, recently I treated myself with raw chopped garlic fom strange itchy fungal like skin infection. Just with one appliance on the ill spot a week after my skin recovered completely. Before that in few months I couldn't get rid of it effectively with other also home remedies.
So I planted them already thinking they would make it fine over winter... (?). I'm in Michigan. My garlic overwinter did fine but have never planted bubils before. Eek! What do you think? Should I dig them back up? Zone 5a
@@RRaucina Just one clove chopped in many peaces. Apply directly over the affected area. Make some bandage if you need. Leave at least half an hour, it may burn and itch a little. For me just once was enough.
It depends. Bulbils can vary in size. If the bulbil is medium to large in size you can get to a nice head of garlic in 2 years. First year the bulbil will split into cloves that will usually be larger the bulbil was when you planted it. If you plant this cloves the following year they (depending on the original size of the bulbil) will develop into virtually a full-sized head of garlic. Bulbil size is almost always an inverse of the number/size of cloves in the final head of garlic. For heads of garlic with a larger quantity of cloves you will have less bulbils but they will be larger. For heads of garlic with larger cloves, and less of them in a head of garlic, you will have many more smaller bulbils. These may take up to 3 years to get to a full sized head of garlic. But, it's usually worth the extra year!
Found a scape with bulbils and potted them.
Cute little grass-like growth 🙂
Ned,
I hope all is well. I never knew it took two years to grow garlic but I appreciate it even more now. Thank you for this experience. I hope to harvest a bounty of garlic in my not too distant future.
Great video , thank you .
This is our second year saving our own bulbils ( it’s great from one plant got even 60 miniature cloves ) .
Some bulbils from last year grow in pots now but still looking like grass or young onion seedlings .
I believe I can raise garlic this year, thank you so much. Katie from cheyenne Wyoming.
Thank you, this is our first garlic planting, using cloves in raised beds. We are studying bulbils now
It's REALLY interesting just note that to get REAL seeds might be very hard your first occurrences trying to get them to seed. Because you haven't started a biodiversity for your area. But once you DO it's be surely a food security not to be reckon with. :)
If you leave them in the ground, will they grow into bigger rounds or a head of garlic next year?
Why do you take them out only to put them into the ground again?
Yeah I’m thinking same thing 🤔
It’s prob got to dry out completely I’m guessing. So maybe it needs to be dried out so it finish its life cycle. I know if you leave them in ground they can rot. It happened to some I planted years ago. I guess if you have them in pots you could leave them in pot and just not water them 🤔 I will have to look into it cos it’s a lot of extra work lol.
Because he broadcast the bulbils like you would grass seed to save time and space. If left together, there wouldn't be enough space for each one to grow to their potential. Replanting them when they are trying to die back down to the bulb could cause them to rot or force regrowth too early. Letting them dry so that all of the energy from the above ground portion goes back into the bulb gives them more energy to start growing when replanted at the proper time and spacing.
@@danielsmith336 thank you so much because this explains it perfectly 💜
Very informative on how to be actually doing this. As it stands I heard it's very hard to get them to do this with the first occurrences to going to seed for the area of your self-grown garlics.
Yes, it is hard. I haven't had it happen yet. There is a company that has successfully done it. The first generation they had a very small germination rate. A couple of generations later they are getting close to 100% germination with the seed. You then have to grow out the garlic. There will be different characteristics with every different seed. From there you can get rid of the ones you don't like and you can continue to develop the strains you do like.
Thanks for the 2 year cycle tip. I will try to grow them from seeds... and from bulbillis.
I would go as far to saying it's something to be explored more to make sure garlic varieties can be secured, especially considering everything going on these days and beyond. Instead of everyone "just" growing garlic (through cloning with cloves).
Perfect. You answered all m y questions, thank you!!.
VERY informative about growing with bulbils indeed!
Thanks for the video Ned. I have a question: How much concern is there that bulblis collected from the flower stalk might be cross pollinated with other garlics flowing at the same time? I just collected bulblis from the roots a few minutes ago and got 60 off of 18 plants. Being I have two types of garlic growing I'm concerned that the flower bulblets could be cross pollenated. Thanks!
Garlic bulbils are not seed. They are basically miniature cloves and are genetically the same as the cloves. When you plant a clove or a bulbil, you are planting a clone of the plant. Garlic can cross pollinate and produce seed but it doesn’t tend to.
Did you pull them so you can vernalize them in the refrigerator to ensure that it will clove or something and put them back in the ground? I’m assuming it doesn’t get cold enough where you are that’s why you pulled them out?
As long as you fall plant, it'll get enough chill hours that way. Vernalization is only required for warmer areas that are growing hard-necks (at 400 chill hours verses 80 for soft-necks) OR if you are re-planting in the spring instead of the fall.
I was watching an old video you did on experimenting with garlic and was wondering if you ever got any seeds? Thanks for the great videos!
I just bought some bulbils - mid February. So should I start them indoors and replant after frost?
Liam, just wait until the ground is workable and then plant them outside. They can be planted in a row about 1 inch apart. Likely they will grow into rounds in the first year. Replant them in the late fall and then the following year you will have small heads of garlic.
This is such a big piece of growing garlic that people don't know.
we need more garlic videos
And not those water bottle stick an entire bulb in ones. XD
@@rickytorres9089 haha yeah those are such a scam
You indicated that two of the varieties were hard to find and you could not find seed garlic for them, but never indicated what the varieties were. What were those hard to find varieties? Also, I'm pretty sure it is pronounced "bulb-ils" not "byou-bills" but I may be wrong. I tried producing "true garlic seed" this summer for the second time and actually got a few seeds. I'm hoping for some luck with germination but am not holding out much hope. Cheers and I hope your garlic stores well into the new year!
Hi Tom, they were Vekak and Rosewood. I believe you have the correct pronunciation. ;) Good luck with the seeds!!! Hope to give it a go this coming year. My planting stock looks strong so I'm hoping for a great spring with plenty of good strong plants.
My partner and I do some market gardening and are planning on planting ~2000 cloves this fall (in a week or two up her in Southwestern Ontario). We also have nice looking seed garlic this year. We currently grow around 12 varieties and I just procured around 12-17 more varieties this fall at a local garlic festival. I'm most excited about the creole variety I got called Aglio Rosso. Nice to see another garlic nerd, nerding out talking about garlic. Cheers!
Exactly! 2000 cloves! Wow! Good luck with the new varieties.
Aglio Rosso is a creole variety and apparently does not get overly large in the northern latitudes. With that being said, I was quite pleased with how it turned out and I have expanded my stock from a couple bulbs to over 100 bulbs. Some bulbs were smaller than others but I would say there were quite a few that were "medium sized" that I was pleased with. Those ones are my planting stock for next year. I have not eaten much of it as I was just trying to build up my seed stocks but it has a warm heat and a nice garlicky finish when raw. It would be excellent in salad dressings. I will have to cook with it soon.
@@tombutler3569I’m in Ontario as well. Do you sell seed garlic? I’m looking for different varieties.
Currently I only have one and don’t even know what variety, just know it’s a hard neck. I’m going to plant some bulbils this year and going to try get true seed next year.
Hey Ned
Great video, thanks for the info. What zone are you located in? And also what variety garlic is that in the right bucket? That variety has a quick turnaround from Bulbil to big garlic round.
Nice job! Super helpful!!
Is it possible to grow rounds from garlic cloves instead of bulbils? I have a bunch of garlic from last fall's harvest. I want to plant the cloves in the spring so they grow into rounds. How do I do that. thanks
Rounds are the precursor to cloves. Think of rounds as teenager garlic plants. Planting a clove will give more cloves as the cloves you plant are clones of an adult plant that will always split itself into multiple adults. You can't force an adult to revert back to a teenager, you have to start with a bulbil. Simply let some of your cloves set scapes and plant the bulbils that they produce to get rounds.
Yes it is possible. Planting smaller cloves i spring or early summer will most likely give you rounds bigger than the cloves you planted. Plant these in fall👍
@@danielsmith336 Two words to be aware of, soft-necks are HARD to produce "to go to seed" and even hard-necks will be difficult to start producing REAL seeds so they might need to keep at it before they got them for their area.
@@rickytorres9089 Where in my comment did I ever mention seeds?
Very informative! Thank you!
Awesome video! Thank you.
Why you plant them in spring and not fall ?
You can plant them in the fall as well. These rounds were harvested in the fall. I cured them in the basement over the winter and then planted them as soon as I could work the ground. If you harvest the rounds early in time to cure them for 30-60 days you can plant them in the fall. Planting them in the fall (a couple of weeks before a hard frost) you may find that they grow larger or mature sooner the following year.
I do not dig my Bulbils, I leave them in the ground & they just come up in the fall, like daffodils do in the spring.
I can not find any decent priced Hardneck Bulbils anywhere. Very frustrating
To be fair, it's HARD to get REAL seeds out of them, it's takes generations of the garlics to get better at this. Even though it's much easier for them to seed at all (even though majority of them will be "fake" seeds).
Can you just plant the bulbils and leave them there for a couple years and then harvest them?
You could and they would be fine. However, they would be smaller- you dig them up and replant them so they have the proper spacing so they can grow to full size.
@@nedcooke oh thanks! I didn't even think about the spacing. That makes sense now.
Can I just leave the bulbils for 3 years in the ground and then harvest the final garlic?
You could, but in 3 years there won't be enough room to develop individual heads. With bulbils you can plant them tightly- using less room while they grow out. Then, after they are bigger (after 1-2 years), you can plant them 6" or so apart so they have the room to develop.
I see, thank you for sharing.
By the way, recently I treated myself with raw chopped garlic fom strange itchy fungal like skin infection. Just with one appliance on the ill spot a week after my skin recovered completely. Before that in few months I couldn't get rid of it effectively with other also home remedies.
So I planted them already thinking they would make it fine over winter... (?). I'm in Michigan. My garlic overwinter did fine but have never planted bubils before. Eek! What do you think? Should I dig them back up? Zone 5a
@@Asgardt13 What appliance did you put on the rash? Refrigerator? Dish washer? I want to try this.
@@RRaucina Just one clove chopped in many peaces. Apply directly over the affected area. Make some bandage if you need. Leave at least half an hour, it may burn and itch a little. For me just once was enough.
Gracias amigo saludos de mexico
Can you eat the rounds?
I do
i dont know the word for those in my language? :( i want to grow these..
search for garlic seeds maybe
I've heard it takes 3 years on bubils
Year 1, rounds (1 clove)
Year 2, divided Stunted head. (3-4 small cloves)
Year 3, full sized completed head.
It depends. Bulbils can vary in size. If the bulbil is medium to large in size you can get to a nice head of garlic in 2 years. First year the bulbil will split into cloves that will usually be larger the bulbil was when you planted it. If you plant this cloves the following year they (depending on the original size of the bulbil) will develop into virtually a full-sized head of garlic.
Bulbil size is almost always an inverse of the number/size of cloves in the final head of garlic. For heads of garlic with a larger quantity of cloves you will have less bulbils but they will be larger. For heads of garlic with larger cloves, and less of them in a head of garlic, you will have many more smaller bulbils. These may take up to 3 years to get to a full sized head of garlic. But, it's usually worth the extra year!
Eat the rounds…
It's pronounced "bulb - ills" not "byou - bills"