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hortster

Thermadrone?

9 years ago

A couple of days ago I was discussing ways to get garlic to
"size up" with the owner of a local feed and seed store. He smiled,
went to a storage area and gave me two seed cloves of what was presented
as 'Thermadrone,' a French variety. When I saw the bulb and before I
was told what variety this was the first thing I asked was, "Is this a
variety of elephant garlic?" He said that under good conditions
Thermadrone cloves could grow to these gigantic proportions. The bulb
was HUGE and only had five or six cloves, all this size.
Has anyone else grown this and had these gigantic results?

Comments (7)

  • 9 years ago

    Very impressive cloves!

    I've never grown Thermadrone myself, but what you describe does not sound like Thermadrone from what I have read.

    From the garlic sites I have read it is described as a Artichoke type with 12-20 cloves per bulb but they also say it can get quite large. It is from France though.

    All you can do is plant it and wait until June and see what you get.

  • 9 years ago

    Hmmmm. I am sure he said that he got the seed garlic that he grew from Filaree, a dependable company. I read the same thing (12-20 cloves) and read that the cloves and bulbs can get very large. Maybe it takes a certain set of conditions to get fewer but larger cloves. Next June a report will be forthcoming!

  • 9 years ago

    I hadn't read that...my two cloves got planted yesterday, so we shall see! Also planted Siberian red, Bogatyr and Chinese red. This is the latest I have ever planted, normally two weeks to a month earlier.

  • 9 years ago

    I think with the summer like fall we have been having you should be good horster. Not even a frost in site here in KC. My garlic was planted Columbus day weekend...it may be a foot tall by the time the ground freezes.

  • 9 years ago

    LoneJack, I've been thinking that if I had planted Oct. 1±, like you said, it would have grown too much on top, not spent as much energy on rooting and I would be getting some severe tip scorch through the winter, to boot. This year's late planting may actually have been an advantage.

    You know the old saying, "Wash your car and it will rain for sure." I'll take the blame for the warm fall since I had my chimney cleaned and a cord of firewood delivered at the end of September! So naturally it has been too warm for flames, oak smoke and toasting marsh mallows...

  • 9 years ago

    lol horster...I think you are right on the late planting being an advantage this year. I think it was 2014 that we didn't get below freezing here until Nov. 4 but a few days later it was single digits and the ground was frozen solid.

    You got me beat on the firewood. My property is 3/4 wooded and there are several trees that have fallen this year and several more that are 'curing' upright so all I have to do is go out and cut and collect them. I have the week of Thanksgiving off and that is on my to do list.

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