Planting garlic bulbils & rounds.

[Vanisle_BC]

Here are my bulbils ready for planting late September 2017. They're spaced 1" apart and each row is from a different variety; maybe you can read the labels. The row of the fattest blue/purple ones in the photo, I'd neglected to note the name of. Darn! Maybe Music? "RedNeck" is my own designation for a type whose name I've long forgotten.

The plants I took all my bulbils from had been left to flower and when I pulled them up early/mid September, a couple had cloves already sprouted and growing. I've re-planted those bulbs whole. My buddy opines they'll die over winter but I suspect not. It will be interesting to see what happens.

I've only done bulbils once before, with unidentified (donated) bulbils, in the same basin & pattern. That gave me rounds this year about the size of a cherry and those are now planted in the ground in 2 spacings: 4x4" staggered and 6x6" square. Hopefully (over-optimistically?) those will give bulbs next July with cloves big enough for planting in fall. However it may take a further year to grow them up to that size? Incidentally I've looked in vain for evidence that the biggest cloves grow into the biggest bulbs. But I'm not all that methodical so maybe I just missed it. Intuitively it makes sense.

[jal_ut]

Hmmm, are you planting them in containers? When planting garlic I plant in the fall mid September to Early October. Plant out in the garden plot and put the cloves in rows spaced one foot apart with the cloves 6 inches apart in the rows. Plant your largest cloves to get nice multi-segmented bulbs. Smaller cloves often just make rounds.

Those cherry sized rounds should give you some nice multi-segmented bulbs if you give them proper space and nutrition. Oh, and if they send up a flower stalk, I always just cut off the flower.

[Vanisle_BC]

jal_ut: Only my bulbils are in a container (basin w. drain holes.) In the past I've planted garlic at 5x5 inches in open ground - or sometimes raised beds - in Sep/Oct; sowing 200 cloves to provide bulbs for next year's kitchen plus seed (cloves) for next fall. Now I'm planting only enough cloves (150) to supply the kitchen, and growing bulbils->rounds->bulbs for my seed needs. This will save bit of garden space, and some say will lead to better yields in future. Anyway it's an interesting thing to try. Incidentally, I don't think I've ever had a planted clove just grow into a round - always a bulb, even if puny.

Here's my garlic plan 2017-18; depends on going from bulbil to bulb in 2 seasons (too optimistic?)

Plant cloves for 2018 kitchen harvest:

- In bed E1, spaced 4x4" staggered (Rows of 12 across bed)

2 rows S. Delafield
2 rows Fishlake
2 rows Dan's Russian
2 rows Redneck
1 row Red Russian
-> approx 108 plants

- In NE. open ground, comparing spacings:

24 Music at 6x6 and 4x4 spacing
14 Red Russian - 6x6 and 4x4
2? unidentified self-sprouted bulbs.
-> 40+ plants

- Total about 150 plants for harvest 2018.

Rounds In bed N4 for 150 seed cloves in 2018: ~35 at 6x6 & 4x4 (grown from donated bulbils)

Bulbils in basin for 2018 rounds: ~ 50: less failures -> 40 rounds for growing to 2019 seed cloves.

[jal_ut]

Looks like you are having too much fun!