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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] My experience with Elephant Garlic

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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87@frontiernet.net>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] My experience with Elephant Garlic
  • Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:47:28 -0400


On Jun 16, 2009, at 12:28 PM, Hilborn.E@epamail.epa.gov wrote:

Thank you Ginda_ I plant the sort of garlic with a hard central
flower-stalk in MA,
zone 6. I just scratch a hole in the soil and drop the bulb in, the
top of the bulb is maybe 2" below the soil line.

Important point: my understanding is that elephant garlic is planted
deeper than soft neck or hard neck garlic.

Maybe that's why I never had much luck with it; I thought it wasn't well suited here (other West Coast garlic strains I've tried usually don't do well here), plus which it was kind of the garlic for people who don't like garlic, as the flavor is mild.

I plant regular garlic about 2" deep (in shallow trenches made with the rototiller furrower, faster than individual holes) and cover with two to four inches of straw; it comes up right through the straw in the spring, you don't need to pull the straw back. Straw greatly improves winter survival here, not due to lowest temperatures I don't think, but because it prevents frequent freezing and thawing through the winter; which has been quite common here, especially recently, because we've been having a lot of warm weather intermittently through the winters.

Planting season for garlic here is the second half of October.

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly



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