Hi all, This fall, I meant to buy garlic cloves for planting in the garden. Things got away from me & the cloves are all sold out. Can I plant grocery store cloves? If I split them up into individual cloves?
That is my usual way of planting garlic. I buy three or four heads (if you can find ones that are looking slightly green at the tip, they are the best), split them into cloves and plant the cloves about 6" apart. You'll have garlic to harvest in late spring/early summer, and it will be wonderful!
I did it, to fill out the row. I don't think you are 'out" anything to try it. I also had a nice bag from save a lot that I really liked so I kept most of that to plant, too.
I've also tried this and, as the others have said, it works. Go ahead and plant up those cloves and we'll be waiting to see the results you get.
Plant only the largest ones, though. I saved all the little ones and sliced them in the little pampered chef garlic slicer and put them in the dehydrator to dry and I now have a pint jar filled with dried garlic.
Great! Thanks all. I will try store bought garlic, planting the largest cloves. I bet I'll have a bummer crop come mid-summer!
I too always plant store bought garlic, in exactly the same way as others have suggested - However I plant them in small pots, so they can be moved around to where they are needed the most. They actually repel spider mites, aphids, and white mealybugs, but at the same time don't do anything harmful to the ladybugs (that are good to have in the garden)... Seriously, this works better then any man made pesticide, and that too in a 100% organic way! This is why I plant them in pots, as wherever there is an new outbreak of aphids (which love to ruin my chilies) - I simply bring in a few pots to that spot, and so the problem is solved within a week at the most. Just try it and you'll really be amazed at the results!!!
Wow! Good to know! I wonder if it would work with other garden pests? How about other kinds of pests?
Does Count Dracula count as a garden pest??? Because I'm sure he too will want to ran away the moment he'll catch the smell of fresh garlic!!! http://www.garlic-central.com/vampires.html
Ha ha pretty funny S-H! I was wondering what you would do with my comment. Actually, I was feeling a little catty when I wrote that previous post ("How about other kinds of pests?"). There is another gardener at my community garden who is like the 'garden police', always trying to tell me what to do with my garden, or that I wasn't "doing it right". She & I have since come to an understanding, but earlier in the season I would have gladly used some garlic to keep her away!
Hummm... I can understand how you feel about it. Because such people are often encountered in almost all fields of life - As in people who can't help but (often forcefully) impose their own methods on everyone else... Reality of course is that since there are many ways to do something incorrectly, there are at the same time just as many ways to do something right also! So it's not like there is only one single right way, while every other method is incorrect or inefficient. But these borderline crazies will never see it like that, probably because their own control-freak type nature will never allow them to see beyond their own flawed mindset... In my experience, such people themselves are actually the saddest ones around. For they will never know the pleasure, the joy, of having fun, and the ultimate satisfaction one gets as soon as some task gets done, (be it gardening or whatever). For they are wound too tightly, and ultimately punishing themselves only (and that too unknowingly)... I myself have come across such people so many times, that if I start going into detail, by writing about each one - Then this post will contain more text then the whole Encyclopedia Britannica! Still, some do eventually see the light, and so correct themselves. But unfortunately, for each one that realizes his or her mistakes (when it comes to forcefully imposing their own methods on others) - There are at least 5 to 7 others who never will realize... Seriously, I think I can write a PhD thesis about such people, as my own maternal grandmother was like that. She passed away just a few years ago, living well over a 100! But I had cut off all communications with her since the late 1980s, as God being my witness, I could never tolerate her over inflated ego and habitual control-freak nature... And no, garlic didn't have much effect on her, [yes I tried that on her too, thus arriving at the conclusion that she indeed was worse then Count Dracula]!
I love the idea of planting in pots and then locating where they are needed!! I have learned some really cool things from all the Stewbies !
