Congratulations Larry! There is nothing compared to a good homegrown garlic. You did an excellent homework on the garlic, hope to see all your success in the future.

Silvia

I worked for Alpha Garlic Farm in upstate New York, you should really check out Stan's web page, I just recently moved from upstate n.y. down here to Titusville z9b and wasn't even sure if I could grow hard necks down here

Ooh... Titusville. Such a quaint little town. Ever since NASA stopped their shuttle program, I have been wanting to move of toward the western side of Titusville so I could be midway between the marshes and the beaches (I figure the prices could be good while the town is in a lull between 'industries'). Unfortunately, my wife wants to stay mid-state, so it looks like we'll be looking for land around Mt. Dora or Tavares when the time comes. Anyways... back to the topic:

As someone who uses garlic in almost every dish I can when I have it, I have been wanting to grow my own garlic for a while but keep failing, I will have to read through this and try it next year. Thanks for the info Inulover.

we'll be looking for land around Mt. Dora or Tavares when the time comes

There's still some really nice land around Eustis, but in that whole area you need to consider the height/depth of the property as well. Low lying areas can have a climate more like Ocala's.

I would be tickled to have someone else try their hand at garlic. A lot of people reported failures when I first looked into garlic down here. I did hear stories about someone that grew enough garlic to sell at farmer's markets in the past, but they had gone and not told anyone how they did it so reliably. So if one can do it, then anyone should, right? Vernalization is the key. Just staying with soft necks and creoles may work in the panhandle, but not reliable down here. I believe I have other posts in this forum about vernalization, but in short, 10+ weeks below 50F to get creoles to reliable head down here. Last year was the first time I tried a true hard neck, temperate type variety. It did very well, so this year I have a purple stripe, rocambole, and a porcelain to go with my creoles. I expect all of them to form heads.

I am currently doing a 12 week vernalization. the longer at less than 50F, the more resistant the cloves are to being reset by our hot fall weather. I do not know for sure that I really need that long. I had intended to split my planting into 10, 11, and 12 week vernalization, but i was in the hospital at planting time, so everything is at 12 weeks. The problem with late shipping northern seed producers and long vernalization is that it makes for a short growing season. I had hoped to be able to cut back on the time. Our very warm (hot) fall would have made this a good year to do the experiment. The other avenue that I am pursuing is to start producing my own seed by way of starting bulbiles. Growing from bulbiles will help localize the garlic as well as making seed available in summer. Our rapid warm up springs made my garlic ready to harvest 2 months earlier than the northern growers.

I remember reading that all garlic sold in stores is soft-neck garlic. I want to try the elephant garlic, but not sure if I'll do it in pots or in the ground.