Tuesday, 23 October 2012
Growing Garlic from bulbils
We all know that buying garlic for planting isn't cheap - a couple of pounds a head that may yield a dozen or so cloves. Last year I bought organic garlic from a supermarket as a cheap, but not always recommended, solution. Some of the garlic flowered and produced small bulbils in the flowerheads These were sown in a seed tray on 8th October - two weeks later they are rooting and shooting!! It may take 2 years to produce garlic of a culinary size but meanwhile, its cost me nothing.
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When I first had my plot, I was advised to always keep a couple of your best home grown garlic bulbs to one side then split and replant them. It's free (always good!) and the bulbs acclimatise to your own soil/weather conditions so get bigger & better each year!
ReplyDeleteThanks Hazel! I've just planted some garlic cloves in modules and hope to have some decent sized bulbs next year. I shall definitely be keeping back the best as stock - I'm too mean to keep buying them every year.
ReplyDeleteThose look fab.
ReplyDeleteI sowed some bulbils last year and they came through really well but the tray I planted them in got swept away in the storm we had in the spring.
I think it's definately the way to go, I know you have to wait a wee while longer to get a decent crop but we're a patient lot us gardeners ;P
I bought from the Really Garlicy Company last year and it was quite expensive, I replanted most of them in October and think i'll buy some from the Asian Grocers to use for eating and replant the others again this year to bulk up my stock.