What eats garlic?

[SOB]

Other than us gardeners growing it...what likes to eat garlic? I mainly mean animals (deer, groundhogs, raccoon, squirrels, etc.) as I'm thinking this fall I might planting a lot of garlic at my parents farm where animals could (if they wanted to) have easy access to the plants. I live an hour and a half away so I can't keep a close eye on thing. My parents come by a few times a week but I don't want them to have to take care of them too much and garlic seems like a pretty easy plant to put in the ground and forget.

What can I expect? Thanks!

[DoubleDogFarm]

The only problem I have with garlic is occasional Rust. My ducks have pulled a few out of the ground when the plants were young, no eating.

Garlic is used as a animal deterrent spray, so I don't think you will have much of a problem.

Eric

[TZ -OH6]

Garlic and onions are about the only thing I can plant outside of the deer fence. We have racoons, groundhogs, rabbits, squirrels, chipmonks, possums, skunks, chupicabra.......


Only problem I've had is with deer walking through and moles digging under for worms but neither really damaged anything.

[kimbledawn]

Tz I was wondering where our chupicabra went.

[applestar]

Slugs.

[DoubleDogFarm]

Well, I once had a short sickly looking grey, bighead, glassy eyed thing, steal some of my garlic.

Eric

[SOB]

Thanks for all the good, humorous replies. When I was searching all I could find was using garlic as a spray like DD said. I planted my first garlic in my small garden last fall and I'm thinking about taking all 24 bulbs I'm growing this year and plant them this fall.

I was told garlic will store for a good 6 months...do you all agree?

[applestar]

you do mean separate them into cloves and plant the biggest ones don't you? Eat the little ones.

I don't think you need to store them for 6 months for planting -- harvest in summer, plant in fall -- about 4 months. but if you mean for eating, they keep better if stored in cool dark place whole, but Marlingardener recently said she freezes the separated cloves unpeeled for eating. I'm going to try that this year.

[TZ -OH6]

How long garlic stores depends on the variety. I have one variety that barely made it long enough to replant in early December (from July-August) harvest, while my Chesnok Red from last summer is still around more or less. It is also a hotter variety, so like onions the hotter (more sulfur compounds) varieties may store longer.

Many garlic websites identify which of their varieties are good keepers.

[SOB]

Yes, I meant separating the bulbs into cloves and planting most of the cloves.

The garlic I have currently going was given to me by my uncle which he grew. He says they store for about 6 months after harvest. I just wanted to check on some more opinions...

Also, he always plants garlic in August and then harvests the next year. I did the same (planted last August) but now that I've been doing more reading everything says to plant in the late fall. What effects would a late summer planting have on the garlic?

[TZ -OH6]

Planting in August here would get you fairly large "sprouts" that would freeze back to some extent over winter. I don't how much of an effect that would have on growth the next spring. It could also be that the garlic has a dormancy period before sprouting so they may not get that big before winter. The few I left in the ground last year didn't sprout for a while so they may need a cold period to trigger them. Its possibly safer to hold them above ground to plant later in the fall incase there are any maggots or other things that want to infect them.

[Jennifer J]

Help! I read that deer dislike garlic, so, given that my roses took a beating the other night despite soap in abundance, last night I placed cloves of garlic around each bush. Today, guess what? The roses are still fine, but every piece of garlic has been eaten! Only the outside casings are left. Amazing. Any idea as to what could have eaten them please?

Thanks.

[hendi_alex]

I eats garlic!