I planted garlic in Oct it was doing good. My silly cats always dig up my garlic and onions, I think the bad smells make cats think this is the outside poop box so I put the glass on the hot bed with a 1" air vent gap around the edge. We had 5" of snow Garlic got too hot garlic is trying to bolt already. I removed the glass yesterday and it snowed last night. Its been 20 years since I used a hot bed I forget how easy it over heats inside. Wonder if I can save the garlic.
Cats are my garden friends they keep away the squirrels, rabbits, snakes, skunks, possums, other small animals.
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Gary350
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 5475
- Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
- Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.
I should have known better.
Last edited by Gary350 on Tue Feb 09, 2016 10:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: I should have known better.
Bummer, I hope they make it too.
Maybe next time make a closed ends tunnel out of wire fencing/chickenwire? Depending on what you want, you could either make it out of large opening that the garlic could grow through, or small opening like chickenwire or hardware cloth that could double as strawberry tunnel to protect the berries from birds, etc.
Unless the garlic you planted is southern cold sensitive varieties like turban, I think garlic doesn't really need a plastic (or glass) tunnel. And even then, the garlic source I got the turban seed garlic from said it might be enough to just plant them deeper and mulch well even for my area... And I think winter lows are a little less severe in TN (well normally, not sure about THIS winter).
I put open ended vented plastic over my garlic bed planted with turban. Not sure if that is doing anything, but I will find out.
Last year, I tried sowing Walla Walla onion seeds in the fall and covering with plastic tunnel. I doubled the plastic on one end but didn't have enough to double on the last 2 feet of the other end of the tunnel. Guess what, only the ones planted in the last two feet survived. Though it was only the one time experience, my guess is that doubled section got too hot on sunny days and prevented them from properly hardening off/going dormant to survive the extreme freezing nights.
(Ugh this is one of my rambling thought posts, and I'm not sure if the paragraphs are in correct and logical order, switch them around to make most sense, please)
Maybe next time make a closed ends tunnel out of wire fencing/chickenwire? Depending on what you want, you could either make it out of large opening that the garlic could grow through, or small opening like chickenwire or hardware cloth that could double as strawberry tunnel to protect the berries from birds, etc.
Unless the garlic you planted is southern cold sensitive varieties like turban, I think garlic doesn't really need a plastic (or glass) tunnel. And even then, the garlic source I got the turban seed garlic from said it might be enough to just plant them deeper and mulch well even for my area... And I think winter lows are a little less severe in TN (well normally, not sure about THIS winter).
I put open ended vented plastic over my garlic bed planted with turban. Not sure if that is doing anything, but I will find out.
Last year, I tried sowing Walla Walla onion seeds in the fall and covering with plastic tunnel. I doubled the plastic on one end but didn't have enough to double on the last 2 feet of the other end of the tunnel. Guess what, only the ones planted in the last two feet survived. Though it was only the one time experience, my guess is that doubled section got too hot on sunny days and prevented them from properly hardening off/going dormant to survive the extreme freezing nights.
(Ugh this is one of my rambling thought posts, and I'm not sure if the paragraphs are in correct and logical order, switch them around to make most sense, please)
Learning never ends because we can share what we've learned. And in sharing our collective experiences, we gain deeper understanding of what we learned.
Re: I should have known better.
Garlic is only toxic to cats if they eat it - and quite a bit. For a normal adult cat to get sick he'd have to eat at least a few bulbs.
The funny thing is that most cats will avoid the scent of garlic, so I'm surprised yours will even get close enough to dig them up!
The funny thing is that most cats will avoid the scent of garlic, so I'm surprised yours will even get close enough to dig them up!
Re: I should have known better.
They probably don't care that much about the garlic, they want the soft soil.
Happy gardening in Hawaii. Gardens are where people grow.