Posts Tagged ‘garlic’

Elephant garlic redux

My last attempt at planting elephant garlic was in 2011. It wasn’t totally successful – I got a crop out of it, but the bulbs I ended up with were the same size as normal garlic. Put it this way, there was nothing “elephant” about them. This time round, I’ve used bigger pots – ten inches in diameter rather than 6 or 7. Hopefully this will do the trick. I planted the bulbs last October, and as you can see, they’re doing pretty well:

Top tip: I grew mizuna from seed in the same pots as the garlic. So while the garlic was sprouting last autumn, I also had a crop of salad leaves.

It’s garlic planting time again

Planted eight normal-sized garlic cloves at the weekend – I looked up in this blog to remind myself when I planted them last year, and FWIW, I am two weeks later with them this year – Nov. 6th as opposed to October 24th. Am in two minds about whether to bother with elephant garlic again. Though the elephant garlic I planted last year tasted fab, it wasn’t, er, elephant sized like I expected. Though according to my other half, that might be because I didn’t leave the garlic in the container for long enough. Apparently according to him, the bulbs keep on growing, even when the stalks/leaves have wilted.

Giant red mustard

Last week I planted some giant red mustard seeds, which are already making an appearance, as you can see below. I had a few left over, so I planted them in my garlic troughs to fill up the space. If the slugs and snails don’t nobble it, we will be enjoying some very exotic stir fries in a few months’ time.

Garlic’s taking its time

Three of the normal-sized garlic cloves I’ve planted have finally poked their heads above the parapet, so to speak.  But no sign of the elephant garlic yet.  I have a feeling that it might be something to do with the torrential rain we’ve been having recently, which has turned the compost in my pots to a sort of spongy mess.   Will leave all the garlic cloves in situ for a bit and see what happens, although surely there should have been signs of life by now?

‘Tis the season for planting garlic cloves

There’s nothing much going on gardenwise at the moment, although I was glad I watched Gardener’s World the other night, because there was an item on planting garlic. (If I hadn’t seen the programme, I’d probably have forgotten.) Last year at thsi time, I planted a single trough with half a dozen cloves of ordinary supermarket/greengrocer garlic. This July, we wolfed down our garlic harvest in next to no time – they were lovely and tasty, and I wished that I’d planted some more. So this year I’ve done two troughs (each one of which is about 65 cm long by 12 cm deep). I’ve also ordered four cloves of elephant garlic off eBay. I’ve never had elephant garlic – apparently it’s a bigger, milder version of bog standard garlic. Sounds as though it would taste fab roasted as a vegetable.

If you’re wondering what the chicken wire is for, it’s to keep the cats off until the garlic sprouts!