over wintering garlic - what should it be doing?
Clarington
Posts: 4,949
Morning gardeners!
I'm relatively new to gardening and have only ever grown garlic unintentionally in a kitchen cupboard. But I'm upon wanting to expand my homegrown produce to more than tomatos and herbs and upon hearing you could over winter garlic decided to give it a go with instructions pulled off the internet.Now these instructions said to plant in October so I did (2 weeks ago thinking that the weather was turning for the proper autumn chill in Yorkshire and wanting to ensure they had chance to grow roots before the frosts hit hard).
They now have green shoots of approximately an inch in height. Should I be covering these in more soil to protect them from frosts? I wasnt expecting to see growth so soon and can't find anywhere that tells me how to care for the garlic now its in the soil.
Basically the internet will tell you how to plant them just fine -but I need real people what I'm meant to do from now on!
All advice gratefully received!
Posts
Real person here Clara
(I think 
) Anyway, we planted our garlic three weekends ago, it's now about 4" tall and looking happy. Yours will be happy too - you don't have to do anything to it. It needs a cold spell - that will make the growing bulb split into individual corms.
Just keep an eye to make sure marauding and inquisitive birds don't pull it up to see what's on the other end.
Waterpistols and wirenetting might be helpful with that
Or maybe those children's windmills on sticks ?
Enjoy your gardening.
Thanks ever so! It's quite the treat to see things frowing in the garden at a time when everything else seems to be dying back.
It is a shock Clara to se the garlic sprout when everything around wants to die back for winter.
Top marks Dove this is exactly what people check in here for, precise help and goo sound advice.
That should say GOOD
Don't worry when it snows either, garlic needs at least 30 days of frost to split into cloves and just when you think it's died,in March garlic starts to grow again
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Plant the clove so it's covered by soil though, I start garlic off in modules and plant out those which have started shooting and/or have roots coming out of the bottom of the pot.
Happy gardening.
We do goo on here as well No Expert - there's usually someone providing cake!
Dove
Now cake is something I do know about!
I planted the garlic about 1 to 1.5 inches below the surface the measurement I found somewhere off this site. These ones are in big pots as we're moving house soon (I hope!) So you'd have found me last night out in the rain and thunder drilling a few more drain holes as the recent weather has left the entire garden several inches under water (I was half expecting to find the fish tapping on the door this morning).
When is the latest you could plant garlic straight into the garden? Or would it be best to start some now in modules (or in my case toilet roll inners because I am a cheapskate and it seems to work for my sweetpeas) and transfer them in a months time?
As for frost, there's no danger of us not getting that if you believe the weatherman. Mind you it was still snowing on 23rd May this year so even if you don't believe him I think we're in for a good chance!
Dove you are very witty at that ungodly hour. Clarington you can sow garlic all winter as far as I know and there are Spring varieties too but we will let more experienced garlickers answer that.