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  • From: Paul Bransky <broadcaster AT mwt.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Want to plant garlic
  • Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 14:06:10 -0500


My wife and I grow and sell certified organic garlic. We sell large bulbs for seed at $6/#. Large bulbs tend to have large cloves, which tend to produce large bulbs! We have tested around fifty varieties over the last twelve years, and favor the following varieties for our soil and climate (Crawford County Wisconsin (zone 4), valley silt loam): German Red, French Red, Romanian, Chinese, GSF 79, and Armenian. German Red is widely favored in our area. Buy from a midwestern source, so your garlic is likely to be adapted to your situation. Although garlic reproduces asexually ( by root division), it mutates readily in response to its environment. Varieties that are popular in California and Oregon have usually bombed on our farm.

Plant any time before the ground freezes. Plant deep in fertile soil, or mulch if you can't plant deep. Garlic will develop roots in late fall and early spring before emergence, and you want to protect them from tearing in a freeze/thaw cycle, as sometimes happens to alfalfa. Deep planting or mulch also discourages early emergence, which can be wasted in an April hard freeze. When we used mulch we would remove it after we were sure spring was really on its way, so the soil could warm up quicker.

Weed control is critical. Harvest in July, and don't wait too long! Late-harvested garlic can lose its nice skin to soil moisture. The Garlic Seed Foundation checks their garlic for readiness by cutting a bulb crosswise and looking for wrappers around cloves and air between cloves. A general rule of thumb we use is to harvest when half the leaves are yellow.

Good Luck!


Paul Bransky, editor
The Organic Broadcaster
51560 Johnstown Rd.
Soldiers Grove, WI
54655

(608)735-4779



  • Want to plant garlic, Marienne Kreitlow, 08/16/2002
    • <Possible follow-up(s)>
    • Re: Want to plant garlic, Paul Bransky, 08/16/2002

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