I am currently growing garlic in my garden and since I found out last year that it was not so easy to grow in my heavy clay soil I decided to do a garlic trial.
English Garden Garlic
Following from my last post on my garlic trial I am having mixed results at present. I guess the weather and the type of soil have had a lot to do with the results.
So far I can report that the garlic in my English garden is struggling as you can see in the picture on the right hand side with the tiny cloves and some onions in the background; in fact some of them seem to have died out.
I am not sure if the cause of this failure was the wet winter followed by a really dry spring.
French Garden Garlic
It also looks like the dreaded rust affected some of the garlic bulbs.
Even the cloves which I planted in modules a while ago and were given a head start in spring suffered badly. And it looks like the garlic variety Thermidrome was mostly affected.
In the meantime the garlic in my French garden was doing fine last month but I have now left it to its own devices and I know that it is getting really hot down there. The harvest time shouldn’t be too far away now and only time will tell.
The garlic I planted straight into the ground developed rust, which I noticed last night, so I have pulled it all up and we shall eat it a bulb or two at a time as the bulbs are still fairly small. However, I hope for better things from the garlic I planted in peat-free compost in large bags designed to grow things in. It has been watered regularly, still looks healthy and already has thicker stems than the lot I pulled up.
Hello Karin,
Thank you for your feedback. I didn’t realize that you could grow garlic in grow bags. I guess it solves the problem of clay soil suffocating the garlic cloves.
I seem to have noticed that this year a lot of people have complained about rust so it’s worth keeping a eye.
Thanks again and enjoy the garden!