Friday, May 22, 2009

Garlic update


Just six days after planting my garlic cloves, and what's this I see?

Eager young shoots, all in a row, ready to take on the sunshine, wind and rain.

It would probably help to explain to casual readers that, as outlined in my previous post, 'Garlicky Musings', these are part B of my little plan/experiment with growing garlic. Last Saturday I planted some garlic cloves which had spent four weeks in the crisper bin in my fridge, in an effort to trick them into thinking Sydney is a much colder spot than the tourist brochures would have you believe. So far so good, then. Getting garlic to chill out prior to planting seems to be a good trick, at least as far as getting growth going is concerned. Harvest time will be the real reckoning, though. Next step is to add a few lines of manure to satisfy their growing appetites.

4 comments:

Chandramouli S said...

Cool! That's a great idea, Jamie. I too have a packet of garlic and so wanted to plant them, but have been putting it off since it's hot here. May be I should try it too... Thank you :)

Onesimus said...

Hi Jamie,
I enjoyed what you've had to say about your garlic.

I have three types in my garden - Russian, Australian White, and Silverskin.
I planted the Aussie white and silverskin about three weeks ago. The Russian has been in for quite a bit longer and seems to be going well.

Shoots from the Aussie first came through last week and I was a bit concerned that the silverskins were going to be a failure - but yesterday evening a saw the first shoots (about the same size as your photo) appearing.

It now looks like I'll have a good crop of garlic late in the year.

Last year my Russian garlic took about 9 months from planting to harvest.

Titania said...

Beautiful to see a success. Garlic is one of the "must have" in cooking. We plant, or I better say,now the vegetable gardener is planting Garlic in our subtropical garden. Sometimes there is trouble when it is to wet or to humid. Generally we get a could crop but not as prolific as in a mediterranean climate. We plant the pink skinned from a Queensland
source. We have tried the Russian it takes very long and was not successful.

Sakura said...

I have a question for you garlicky people.

Like Titania, I use garlic in cooking constantly, but I worry about growing my own.

Is it an urban myth that it's poisonous when it's too green? How can you tell? Do you have to dry it out, and how long does it last once you've pulled it out of the ground? (Supermarket garlic seems to last for weeks and weeks?)

I'm looking at your baby garlic with a strange yearning, Jamie, but I'm just a little worried about knocking off the whole family, especially as I use crushed, raw garlic so copiously in salad dressings.