Garlic Analecta

July 1, 2017 11:44 AM

Growing Garlic From True Seed & Addenda

More on garlic from this website:

Kinds of garlic
Planting Tips
Culinary Methods

posted by aniola (12 comments total)

Garlic is one of the easiest things to grow. I just harvested this years scapes and pickled them in a juniper and fennel brine.

One fun tip is if you end up with a bunch of bulbils (tiny cloves above the ground), you can plant those and harvest them in the spring as green garlic.
posted by misterpatrick at 12:39 PM on July 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

Wow, the issue of garlic seeds is much more complicated and interesting than I would've thought!
posted by moonmilk at 1:12 PM on July 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

That was fascinating. Can't doubt the commitment of anyone who has a garlic plant tattooed on their knuckle.
posted by ZaphodB at 1:49 PM on July 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

I was surprised to learn that onions grown commercially were grown from seeds (10-15 onions' seeds are planted on October 15th). We'd only grown them from sets at home. Lots of things don't grow from seeds: apples, potatoes & bananas and have much less genetic diversity because of it.
posted by Bee'sWing at 1:57 PM on July 1, 2017

Apples do grow from seeds, but the problem there is there may be too much diversity.
You have no idea what kind of apples you get until the tree grows up and produces fruit.
That's why commercial trees are grown from cuttings.
posted by MtDewd at 2:01 PM on July 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Someone followed the instructions and included a picture of the actual seeds.
posted by aniola at 3:01 PM on July 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

This is just in time for me. I was harvesting scapes today, but I still have maybe a hundred left to do.
I guess I thought the bulbils were the seed, and now I'm going to have to try getting the flowers to pollinate.
... if it ever stops raining.
But in the meantime, scape pesto tonight.
posted by MtDewd at 3:24 PM on July 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

According to the post, you can still do this with the harvested scapes. Remove the bulbils (yummmm) and keep the scapes in fresh water until they go to seed. If the bottom of the stem starts to rot, remove the rotten part.

Garlic can be left in the ground for the entire seed production process, or the scapes can be severed from the plant just above the last leaf blade and kept in a container of water. Whether to leave the entire plant in the ground or sever the scape is a matter of preference and environmental conditions. Although it was once thought that leaving the scape attached to the plant caused the developing umbel to suffer in competition with the garlic bulb for the plant’s resources, this does not seem to be an overriding concern. Additionally, a severed scape bears a major burden of sustaining the umbel through the lengthy process of fertilization and seed maturity without the benefit of a supporting root system.

posted by aniola at 3:39 PM on July 1, 2017

That was fascinating. Can't doubt the commitment of anyone who has a garlic plant tattooed on their knuckle.


Knuckle?! Lightweight. May I offer my entire upper arm?
(photo is immediately after it was done, hence the redness)
posted by librarina at 8:13 PM on July 1, 2017 [10 favorites]

How did we get as many regional strains of garlic as the world has when only propagating from cloves? Suggestive:

RUSSIAN REDSTREAK

A fascinating Asiatic strain. Came from a single bulb mutation of Russian Red (Rocambole) in 1988. Initial sharp taste and flavor builds. Does well in drought conditions.

Also, how does a strain go from dominant bulbils and 13% germination to few bulbils and strong germination in a few generations? Also, why? Is it a response to climatic conditions that last longer than a year? Or more damaging infections?

Phenotypic plasticity? (lots of good general stuff in the Discussion section there.)
posted by clew at 10:40 PM on July 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

Librarina--that's hard core!
posted by BlueHorse at 4:20 PM on July 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

I guess I followed this process by mistake one year- brought in the garlic flowers to keep in a vase, and eventually I had little seeds all over the table! But I already had so much garlic reproducing by bulb in the yard that I didn't think anything of it and just swept everything up and tossed it in the city compost bin.
posted by Secretariat at 9:21 AM on July 10, 2017