Planting Garlic at different depths

[Kea]

Somewhere last year I mentioned I was planting some of my garlic at different depths to see which was better. Today I harvested the garlic i did this with and the ones I planted at 4" did not do as well as the ones planted at 2". Having said that my garlic did about 300% better this year than last year despite being heavy infested in rust but only the last month.

Lots of cloves on the ones I pre-chilled in the fridge.

[Kea]

[jonny211]

Hiya,

How long did you leave them in the fridge for? Not tried this before myself but may do this year.

Cheers.

Jon

[Barnowl]

................. i did this with and the ones I planted at 4" did not do as well as the ones planted at 2". ...............

Is that 2" / 4" from the top of the clove, or were the holes 2" / 4" deep?

[rosebud]

I leave mine out when it says it is going to be very cold or even frost it hasen`t done them any harm  YET!!!!!!.

[Kea]

2 weeks in the fridge but we did have more frosts after that but these ones I put in later than the others so I wanted to make sure.
I used a dibber and made the holes 2" and 4"...I was going to do 6" but i have very heavy clay and I couldn't get them deep enough. So the top of the clove would have been 1" and 3" deep.

[Barnowl]

Thanks for that info KEA - an interesting experiment  :) I've planted quite deep and always seem to get small bulbs, so that might be one of the causes.

[Kea]

Well there was a discussion about depth in the Autumn so I thought I'd test it out. However it might be different on lighter soils.

[tim]

Or you could stick to the rules??

And as to chilling, once again, the growers suggest Autumn or Spring planting.

I have planted in March with OK results.

So much depends upon the size of the clove, & the soil & feeding?

[Robert_Brenchley]

I've just lifted my early garlic, and my results were much better than last year as well. The elephant garlic came out today, and it's huge. No rust at all, on any of it.

[grawrc]

I'm not at all happy with my garlic however it is planted in the same beds as the onions that have white rot so maybe there is a connection? Even though the garlic shows no signs of rot.

[vegmandan]

I would never plant my garlic more than 1 inch deep for two reasons.

The insulation effect of 4 inches will not get the cold snap into the garlic early on plus the 4 inches of soil won't allow the bulb to get enough warmth later in the season.

An inch deep will give you both benefits ,a dose of cold weather and then a dose of warm weather when needed to ripen in summer. :)

[Robert_Brenchley]

I dib a shallow hole and drop the clove in. I don't know how deep they end up but it can't be more than an inch or two.

[killerflies]

Mini hijack here but when should I be thinking of putting down garlic for next year!?

[Barnowl]

Some of the people on our allotments (in London) are going to try September (i.e. very early) this year. I think the idea is to beat the rust.  Strangely enough my late planted ones (mid-Feb) did better than the Nov/Dec ones, but were planted more shallowly in a mound which might be the reason.

[Kea]

 :-[ Hmmmm! OOps! I jumped the gun a bit! I did a quick assessment down at my allotment by eye. Later i tidied them up and put them all on a rack to dry and discovered that there are fewer bulbs from the 4" deep ones, 2 didn't develop but the ones that did have bigger bulbs than the 2" ones so there wouldn't have been much difference.
I didn't pre-chill these ones as i planted them in late October, it was the ones I bought later in the year and planted in January that i pre-chilled.

[tim]

One can only say - stick to what the growers do?

They do it for a living!!

PS Afterthought - much must depend upon the soil?

[Sally A]

I planted mine end Sept/early Oct last year, just below the surface - a bit of a pain as they kept getting scratched up either by birds or cats, and I spent several days poking them back inbut once they got a grip they were well away.  Had a 100% success rate, they were the porcelain variety Music.  Also I grow in a clay soil so to prevent waterlogging and rotting I planted them on the top of ridges.

Will defineitly be ordering the same seed garlic again this year.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Save the biggest cloves for planting and save yourself the expense.

[Sally A]

I might do a bit of both Robert, I planted 90 cloves last year which should see me through nearly a year, I would have need to plant another 15 at least to give me seed cloves to carry forward.  Even so, I'm not moaning, averaging about 12p per head now, whereas they are at least 50p for the nice big ones in the shops, and who knows how they have been treated.

[artichoke]

I my local farm shop, "wet" garlic costs £1 a head! Don't disillusion me - I like to think I have save about £80 less cost of cloves and fertiliser.

I planted deep and the whole crop has severe rust; I am digging up the ones that fall over and hoping the rest will go on swelling for a bit.