Where did you find such a wide assortment of varieties?

Well, a great garlic list. Just not practical to most of garlic growers. To me, it is like showing off.

Our local garlic growers rarely plant more than 5 varieties. They do not have the interest and energy to test the new varieties. It is a real business, not a hobby.

Just puzzling....

I'm glad someone is keeping up with the names since I don't do very well with it. More and more, when I want to plant just a little more garlic, I reach for a bulb I'd like to have on the cutting board.

After the Music and Silverskin go in (both large bulbs), I complete the planting with midsize hardnecks descended from Appalachian Red and Spanish Roja.

Hey Mr./Ms. RedSun, I lost my ENTIRE crop of garlic, including my seed inventory, in 2012 due to the aster yellows outbreak. 12,000 full size plants of five varieties. I scrambled to recover favored varieties from folks I had given garlic to in the past, and some very nice people from around the nation grew out bulbils of their varieties and shipped them (free) to me to help me out. That is why I have so many varieties, that is why I have recovered from my losses so quickly. I was humbled by all those acts of kindness.

I am a serious grower. I have the skill set needed to keep this all organized and to grow out these varieties in order to find what varieties grow best locally, what varieties have the best flavor and storage characteristics, and what might be best for potential marketing. As this gets accomplished I plan on paring down the list of varieties. Does this explain things better, or are you still "puzzled" Mr./Ms. RedSun?

For you, Mr./Ms. RedSun, to criticize people regarding what they grow and taking it upon yourself to decide for everyone what makes a person a serious grower or not makes you pompous and arrogant, a typical attitude of a new member here on GardenWeb. It is also typical of people like you to incorrectly interpret the tone of a post and then feel an obligation to criticize, as if you are the self-appointed arbiter of the subject matter being posted by others. It is people like you who ruin this website by posting negative, insulting posts that chase decent people away.

I know there are good people on GardenWeb who grow far more garlic varieties and far more interesting varieties than I do. I know people who grow far more quantity than I do. I am not arrogant enough to judge people for what they grow or how they go about doing it. I enjoy hearing from everyone, even if they only grow a half dozen bulbs every year. I personally know hobbyists, commercial growers, and folks who just grow to keep strains from going extinct. Unlike you, Mr./Ms. RedSun, I respect all of them and enjoy hearing about their garlic and gardening experiences.

Am I proud of what I got done this fall? YES. Do I want to hear about other members' accomplishments? Absolutely! Anyone who toils in their gardens and posts of their accomplishments has a right to be proud. It is sad when they are put down by insulting crap posts from jerks.

I have been growing garlic for twenty years. With all the (mostly basic) questions you have posted on GardenWeb since becoming a member just this last August, Mr./Ms. RedSun, I have been wondering if you have even grown garlic? All your garlic questions, every single one of them, are answered in one book that you could and should acquire if you really want to learn what there is to know about growing garlic. It is titled, "The Complete Book of Garlic" authored by Ted Jordan Meredith. I highly recommend it.

To everyone else, my apologies for this rant.

Good Day.

hear hear Tom. As a newbie garlic grower, I appreciate your informative and encouraging posts. I understand that PI 515972 is held in the grin collection and not sure whether you have already approached them about obtaining a bulb and/or bulbils. I have read in other forums that grin has fulfilled requests for garlic varieties known to produce true seed to those attempting to do so. Would your efforts to grow different varieties suitable for your climate fulfil their research criteria requirements?

Here is a link that might be useful: grin

This post was edited by zqnmegan on Thu, Oct 30, 14 at 18:16

Tom- Very impressive list of varieties and amount planted. How did you grow out the softnecks to ensure disease free stock? Surely you didn't start with bulbils... although I guess it is possible.

For my main garlic crop I'm only growing a dozen plants each of four varieties due to very limited space:
-Transylvanian
-Inchelium Red
-German Red
-Carpathian

I used to grow elephant garlic too but decided to drop it this year.

Also planted 54 bulbs of an unnamed shallot that I assume is Dutch Yellow or similar, 400 German Red bulbils, an unknown amount of Egyptian onion topsets, and I've got a small patch of yellow multiplier onions that I've let naturalize.

RedSun- For some people growing garlic and other alliums isn't just a hobby or a livelihood, it's also a passion. If I had the space I'd be growing every garlic and perennial allium I could find.

Rodney

I finished my garlic planting last Friday in strange 70 degree weather. I also lost all my stock to AY in 2012 and am rebuilding. It goes a lot faster with softnecks and their many cloves per bulb than with the popular hardneck German. I have 11 varieties this year and planted I think 900 cloves and a bunch of softneck bulbils. I had extra Lorz Italian and French grey shallots left and put an ad on Craig's List.
My varieties are:
German EH 155
Khabar 210
Lorz Italian 300+
Asian Tempest 72
Transylvania 34
Old Homestead ?
Killarney 26
Russian 18
Brown 17
Shandong 69
Kettle River Giant 43

The source for Russian, Killarney and Brown was a farmers market in Vancouver last year. I bought a bulb of each and replanted this year.

Tom my stock is disease free now and wasn't too bad. I still would like to sell at the festival some year. We should have exchanged the ones unique to us this fall.

No, I'm not criticizing anyone. I'm just amazed by the varieties you collected. Even Ted Meredith may not grow these many.

Of course it is great if you have the energy and man power to grow that many and many varieties. I admire your collections. I know I can't handle that.

I keep a copy of Ted Meredith's book. For me, I grow 2-3 varieties from the garlic families I have interest in. In total I grow about 10-12 varieties. This is only my hobby and I'm not a farmer and I do not sell garlic to the market. So I do not grow in the range of 10,000+ heads....

Again, do not take what I said wrongly. I really admire you Tom. Besides garlic, you also grow tons of beans and many many other plants. It is just amazing.....

Keep up the great effort.

I think most of the GWers here grow a small amount of garlic for self use. So it is odd to see someone growing 30-40 varieties and tons of heads.

It certainly helps to state what the varieties and the 12,000 garlic are for.

I only grow 2-3 varieties and about 100 heads. So I really feel small under this giant.....

"I personally know hobbyists, commercial growers, and folks who just grow to keep strains from going extinct."

Count me in as one of the latter.ðÂÂÂ

I too lost my entire stock to aster yellows, and am rebuilding. My collection, though, is primarily for preservation. Never having to buy garlic is just a pleasant side effect of that endeavor, just as the side effect of large-scale seed saving is a full pantry.

The killing freeze came vary late here, so the garden area I should have been turning under for garlic was still producing dry seed, and I didn't have the heart to kill it. Live & learn, I guess... next year I'll leave a strip unplanted for the garlic bed. As it is, I'm waiting for the soil to get a bit drier before I plant... if that doesn't happen, I'll just push them into the mud (been there, done that).

This year's planting:
Bogatyr
Broadleaf Czech
Bulgarian Hanuan
Chinese Rocambole
Choparsky
Chrysalis Purple
Estonian Red
Georgian Fire
German Extra Hardy
German White
Jurjevich
Kettle river Giant
Korean Mad Dog
Krasnodar Red
L.K. Mann's C751
Martin's
Mchadidzhvari (haven't a clue how to pronounce that)
Old Homestead
Pearly Red
Persian Star
Polish Jenn
Pskem
Purple Cauldron
Ron's Single Center
Russian Red
Sicilian Gold
Simoneti
Special Idaho
Transylvanian
Uzbek Turban
Vic's
Walla Walla
Xi'an

This is about the maximum that I can maintain, planting about 20-30 of each. Chances are that I'll lose a few (lost two varieties this year) but there are others I am still interested in, and I expect to maintain about 30 when the dust settles.

Tom, I for one enjoy your posts, and an glad to see you & some of the other pros getting back on your feet. I might dabble in market gardening myself when I retire, which is not that many year from now.

I've got to get better at propagating from bulbils. Missed a golden opportunity this year, when many of my artichoke garlics formed stem cloves. It might be more possible than I would have thought to get the benefits of bulbil propagation with soft neck types.

What do you guys do when you grow >10,000 garlic heads and with so many kinds? This has to be a commercial farmer. Whom do you sell to? Do you hire some help?

Just curious. I can't even consume the 100 heads I grow. And I do not have a lot of room for garlic.

There is always a good market to sell garlic for seed to large growers. One of the local farmer's market vendors will purchase all the Music I am willing to sell, for example. Of course, it goes for less than if I sold it "retail" myself, but I grow garlic because I like to do it not because it will make me rich.

Also, I grow a variety of kinds because it pleases me to do so. My friends are good customers as well and I have sold to a small organic market in the area where I live.

It is a serious business if you grow things to sell. When I have extra, I always give them free to friends and neighbors. It is just odd to sell them. For $$? I would only do that if I can make that a business. Time has value.

There are many books on square foot garden business. But I think most of them are more interested in selling the books, not helping you to start a business. $1,000 a year is not a business.

Anyhow, all folks are different, I assume....

Having grown dozens of varieties over the years, I have narrowed my grow list down to just four varieties that have done very well for me - Music, German Red, Estonian Red, and Russian Red. I planted my 360 cloves two weeks ago at my home in Floyd, Virginia and covered the bed with about 3" of grass clippings & chopped leaves. I just grow for myself, and more than I need since it is so much fun to grow, so I give a lot away to friends.

TomNJ/va

I would love to get my hands on Simonetti again.

The weather has been good, the soil dried out enough to till & I was able to get all of the garlic planted. Now all I need is a better Spring than last year. Oh, and to fence out the deer, they seem to get a perverse pleasure from walking up & down the garlic rows trampling everything.

There were a lot of under-sized cloves left over from the varieties I grew last year, once they are dehydrated that should be enough to keep me in garlic powder over the Winter.

Thanks for the report. I got all mine planted a week or so. Kept doing one more container, then another and so forth. Cut back on some varieties that were sickly, planted them in containers in hope that I can clean them up in a few generations. The good old Early Italian Purple just plain does the best for me and I remembered that and planted more than usual. People like braids and I can sell all that I make. I sell the garlic in hopes of recouping some of what I spend on gardening in general, but especially to cover the food crops.

Glad planting is over and that we are having a normal year of rain so far, well, 233% over average for this time of year, but not near drouth like last year.

Count me among the small growers. For me the reward is the growing. I also do a bit of seed saving for some simple things; to put back my own stock next year is reward enough. I only have less than a thousand square feet total anyway and there are some other things I enjoy growing besides alliums. Nor are all of those fall planted anyway.

There was no killing frost here until the Thursday night before Halloween, which is real late. But I had reserved about 70 square feet ahead of time. I pushed it though, it was almost the last week of October before I got my garlic in the ground.

Only the feral I am trying to recondition got more than a dozen and a half cloves. I was impressed with Japanese this past year, also Music, Siberian, and VietNamese Red. Those 5 are the core I am working out of and probably will be for quite some time.

Our local CUB grocery stores stocked in some bulk softnecks with HUGE cloves so I got a few bulbs of them and during May and June they stock striped bulbs of some hardneck also with very large cloves; so I got some of them, too. That makes 7, hopefully 5 standards and 2 experimental varieties.

I also set aside some of the CUB hardnecks hoping they will keep well enough to plant next spring. I was told by the produce buyer for SuperValu that the hardnecks were "Mexican Purple", which probably makes them a Creole of some kind, but somehow I admit to some doubt about that. They certainly are big, beautiful bulbs with big cloves. So a bit of an experiment.

I also have a bed of some sand leeks and another of walking onions. The walkers have resprouted for the fall. All four from last spring are back as small clumps as well as a whole pile of new bulbils, planted earlier this fall that are up already. Those I got planted timely enough...

My potato onions are being saved back for spring planting next year, both whites and yellows. I will also put in a bunch of Copra plants and perhaps some reds next spring and then try to work in a row for Copra seeds crowded for sets for next year. I think I will be looking for starts of white walking onions, too. I have reds of some sort now. I like the idea of permanent walking onion beds. Reminds me of growing up, and my parents gardens.

Just finished planting most of mine a couple hours ago...too tired and cold to type more now :) Details later.

It's good my planting was done yesterday. It's been cold and rainy constantly today. While I don't plant a lot, it takes time for me to label and keep track of the various varieties. I've only planted 5 cloves of most varieties. It's fun to see the differences in growth patterns, scapes, and coloration. I enjoy that more than the differences in tastes of different varieties...I can't say I have much preference for any particular variety tastewise.

I "chose" these varieties because they were available as low cost single bulbs at some small local farm stands and farmers' markets the last couple of years...not really selected for any other reason. I wrote the variety names right on the bulbs themselves with a Sharpie marker before bagging them at the stands. It drew a few chuckles and started some good garlic growing conversations with the growers. We agreed that in our area planting around Halloween works well for growing...and keeping vampires away :) Also, I heard that others had some varieties that didn't do as well as usual, perhaps because of our prolonged and heavy snow cover last winter and wet spring, so I'm giving some of last year's poor performers another chance.

Here's the named varieties:
Turkish Giant
Porcelain (?)
German Red
German Extra Hearty
Duganski
Chesnok Red
Bogatyr
Chinese Pink
Farmersâ Market 2012 ? maybe Music?
Spanish Roja
Sevilla
Lorz Italian
Turban (?)
Polish Softneck
Also, several unnamed varieties from stores and friends, including the largest hardneck I have. Wish I knew what it was: for now it's Paul D's #12 :)

One unnamed variety I've grown off site for a few years looks to be some porcelain type. I planted 70 or so at a school garden last week. It does well there and the kids in the summer garden program get to harvest it and sell it at a local farm market. Although I am doing less there than in the past, I HAD to put in garlic for them, again...it's so fun to see them have something other than the expected crops of summertime zucchini, cukes, and tomatoes.

All told, I put in about 220 cloves. I may plant some bulbils yet, too. I've kept several varieties from the summer's harvest that look like they would be fun to try growing.

"...Also, I heard that others had some varieties that didn't do as well as usual, perhaps because of our prolonged and heavy snow cover last winter and wet spring, so I'm giving some of last year's poor performers another chance."

That sounds like a good strategy. Many of my most reliable performers did poorly this year due to weather, and you probably had about the same weather as I did. The prolonged snow cover was actually a good thing, it helped to protect from the arctic cold. I blame the rain more than the cold; nearly all of my garlic sprouted after the thaw, but much of it yellowed & died during the nearly constant June rainfall.

Hopefully both of us will have better luck next year. I ended up putting in about 800 cloves, didn't get an exact count because I changed my planting pattern at the last minute to fit more in. The plants will be about 9" apart each way, it will be interesting to see how they do at that spacing. Previously, I planted 9" apart in rows 12" apart.

Zeedman, I think your closer spacing will be fine if you can handle weeding with the closer "rows" and keep the nutrient levels up. I've had good results with similar or even slightly tighter spacing. It can be difficult to weed, though. I try to keep the garlic well mulched and that helps a lot.

I think you are right about the spring rains affecting garlic as well as other crops. Farmers around here are still harvesting corn which would typically all be done by Oct 31 at the latest. Late planting (too wet), slow growth (not much heat in the summer) and slow drying (wet fall) all are making life tough for them. Hearing that recently made me realize why I wasn't very happy with the growth of my heat loving plants this year.

Naturegirl, I definitely know what you mean about the weeding. Instead of one wide row, I planted two narrow rows, each just 2' wide. That should make weeding less strenuous. Nutrients should not be an issue, the soil is highly fertile, and I rotate locations for all crops each year.

Last year, I didn't mulch, because I had some really good years without it. Furthermore, the soil where I grow garlic is heavy & retains moisture, so if I did mulch, I had to pull it back in the Spring to prevent rotting. In those previous years, weed pressure was low, and the weather permitted me to knock down the weeds early.

Neither was true this year... the weeds came up heavily, and with the garden remaining impassible for most of May & June (it was pretty much a mud pit) the weeds got the upper hand. There's enough weed seed in there now to give me headaches for years. :-(

This time, I planted in slightly higher ground, and will be mulching heavily with hay. I'll leave the hay on as long as I can, I think I'd rather lose a few to rot, than fight the weeds in 200' of row.

Heavy Spring rainfall has been a thorn in my side for quite a few years recently, I've lost a lot more than just garlic to the flooding & rot. Had 5 really good years in that location, and the folks who own the land have been unbelievably kind to me & my family... but I may need to find a location with higher ground if I intend to grow garlic reliably.