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  • From: Leigh Hauter <lh AT pressroom.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Re: Garlic woes
  • Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 11:55:47 -0500

We are, what, 60 miles north of Twin Oaks. We mulch our garlic, never seem to have a problems. the high yesterday was near 60. Today it doesn't look like it will get out of the 20's. Every year, there are small garlic greens poking out of the hay but they never seem to die back. More concerned about a hard solid prolonged freeze, maybe a foot or so down in the ground and then the top inch of soil thawing which is the recipe for heaving the garlic out of the ground. That's why the mulch.

Marlin Burkholder wrote:
I'm from Virginia (zone 6) For the past number of years I have
planted garlic in the fall at the normal time (mid Oct -mid Nov) and
have either not mulched at all or mulched lightly with straw and
consistently had successful crops. We often get windy weather here in
the winter and spring so even if we do mulch, much of it gets blown
away. As I write, my garlic has yet to be mulched and several days
ago we had lows around 10 degrees F with 30 mph winds and wind chill
indexes of well below 0 degrees. Typically we can expect cold spells
where lows get down to minus 5 to 0 interspersed with warm spells
where highs get up to the 60's and even low 70's during the winter
months. This means alternate freezing and thawing of the soil and
most snowfalls melting off within a week. I have yet to see
significant damage to garlic tops exposed to subfreezing temperatures.
I have seen some loss due to heaving of garlic plants especially if
the garlic got planted late and didn't have good early root
development. Intermittant freezing and thawing can cause heaving (the
plant pushed upward out of the ground exposing part of the roots).

I'm in central Virginia, a mite warmer (=less cold) than where Marlin is.
Maybe this means more winter thawing and freezing. We've had 5" tall
green garlic die back to the ground in winter, then regrow at the first
opportunity. The yield was not the biggest, but it was OK.
Pam Dawling, Twin Oaks, VA, zone 6b/maybe 7



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