Quick Summary of the Garlic Debate
- 🌍 The Core Question: Does planting the largest garlic cloves guarantee the largest harvested bulbs? Growers debate whether genetics and clove size matter more than the physical structure of the soil.
- 🌱 Soil Structure is Key: A grower noticed that “volunteer” (self-seeded) garlic growing in ultra-fluffy strawberry beds grew twice as large as the garlic in the dedicated, highly amended (but denser) garlic bed. Meanwhile, garlic growing in hard, compacted soil (near raspberries) was tiny.
- 💡 Pro Tip: Even with perfect soil, planting the largest cloves (especially from 3- or 4-clove varieties like Porcelain types) gives the plant more initial energy to establish a massive root system in the fall, leading to bigger shoots in the spring. As one grower put it: “From bad seed, don’t expect a good breed.”
- 🧄 Variety Identification: The large, 4-clove garlic showcased in the thread is identified as a classic Porcelain hardneck variety.
I want to talk about garlic… I always save the absolute largest bulbs for planting. But this year, besides my main garlic bed, three times as much garlic grew randomly wherever it pleased—in the strawberries, in the raspberries, in the flowerbed.
Interestingly, the ones planted in the dedicated garlic bed all turned out practically the same size. But the “volunteer” (self-seeded) garlic in the strawberries was the largest, twice as big as the ones planted in the actual garlic bed. The ones in the raspberries were the smallest.
So now I’m wondering, maybe I don’t need to select the absolute largest bulbs for seed. Apparently, soil structure plays a huge role here, because the soil in my strawberry bed is light and fluffy. And in the raspberries, it’s hard as concrete…
Quote from Nelli:
So now I’m wondering, maybe I don’t need to select the absolute largest bulbs for seed. Apparently, soil structure plays a huge role here…
There is probably more nutrition/fertilizer in the strawberries too, right? Nelli, and how did it self-seed? Did bulbils drop and grow?
I don’t fertilize anything, just watering.
As for how it self-seeded, it’s a mystery. Definitely not from bulbils. In some places, whole bulbs sprouted straight up, it was a total jungle. In the strawberries they popped up one by one. I have a narrow pathway there, maybe when I was carrying a pile of harvested garlic last year, a few cloves dropped off…
Yeah… sure… just that your husband scatters chicken manure bedding absolutely everywhere!!!!
Oh come on… that’s once a year, late in the fall, and mostly under the currants, raspberries, and trees. The tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries only get fermented grass tea, if that. I didn’t even water them with it this year because the heat was too much, or I was too lazy, or it just stank too badly. I poured all that goodness on the flowers instead. Otherwise, I’d be fighting an overwhelming harvest right now… forget about it, this way it’s clean produce and not too much of it…
Nelli, in my experience—it makes absolutely no difference what size you plant if the soil is bad. I’ve given my mother-in-law my premium, hand-selected garlic for planting several times. And every single time, she grew some incomprehensible nonsense, as usual. I have amended clay, she has amended peat. True, she only amended her peat with sand. Whereas I use compost, sand, peat, and manure.
We plant garlic in the fall for overwintering. The larger the clove (for any given variety), the more nutrients it contains, the larger the root system it will build in the fall, and the stronger the shoot will be in early spring. Everything else depends on agrotechnics, nutrition, weather, and our care. From bad seed, don’t expect a good breed.
Good afternoon! Nelli, you are right that soil structure greatly affects the size of the bulb. But for planting, you still absolutely need to choose the largest cloves. It’s no coincidence that it was always believed that to get large garlic, you should plant 3- or 4-clove varieties. For a given bulb size, their individual cloves will be much larger.
Here is my dug-up garlic in bulk. On my clearly non-miniature hand, only two bulbs can fit.
My only watering comes from the sky. My fertilizers are the most basic ones, not fancy blogger stuff. And I have been growing this garlic for over 25 years using my own seed stock, so there is no talk of genetic degradation.
Quote from Grey:
Here is my dug-up garlic in bulk.
Excellent garlic, and it seems to me that it looks very similar to mine, which is also some ancient variety. I remember on a farming forum, a garlic farm expert identified mine as a Porcelain hardneck type.
