A successful garlic experiment

Last year I was a wee bit short of garlic.  I ended up with 80ish heads, when our goal is generally closer to 100+.  I couple of things contributed to this--obviously I didn't quite plant enough bulbs--but also I had purchased a few "fancy" types from the market to diversify my crop a bit, and NONE of them survived the winter.  Lesson learned.  Also: our pickle production has been HUGE the last few years, and I forget how much garlic you use in every batch.

There was a bit of hoarding and skimping of garlic over the winter--I had resigned myself for buying garlic for the first time in YEARS, but we actually made it thanks to a hefty load of scape pesto in the freezer.  We limped along until this year's scape harvest, and I've been nicking a few baby green garlics out of the garden here and there.



Anyway, last fall's planting had a little more pressure to get it right.  I had to walk a balance of saving enough for planting, and having enough to mostly get us through the winter.  Then I had this idea.  There was a "plant".  A sort of chive, sort of not, at the end of one of my beds.  I realized somewhere along the line it was a garlic that I had missed one year, and it just kept coming up, making tasty snippings for dinner, and then teeny tiny little scape heads in June.  So I kept it, as kind of a volunteer pet plant (other people have these right?  That weird arugula patch growing in your pepper patch you just can't stand to pull?
 

So last year, we revamped that little bed for strawberries, and I dug that sucker up.  TONS and TONS of tiny garlc bulbs.  I wish I had taken a picture.  It was like a little garlic factory.  SO, this was my secret weapon last fall.  I planted half of my bed (about 75 bulbs) with big fat mature garlic from the last season's harvest.  The second half was chock full of wee baby bulbs.  I figured, at worst, they'd be tiny but edible, or I could replant them again and build them up to a larger size in a year or two. 


And they've done fantastic.  They've been noticeably shorter than the main crop, but I've pulled a few for fresh eating over the last few weeks and they are a nice size.  Today I lifted them all out and they are awesome.  I will definitely be integrating these little troopers into my main crop.  It looks like I may have harvested them a little late so they may not store all winter, but I'll definitely hang onto a few to plant this fall.  I should note my main crop is just selected from an unknown variety--probably organic grocery store garlic--and they are dependable if not exciting.  I am happy to have these little red-skinned cuties to add to the mix.



I'm totally going to cultivate a few intentionally neglected plants in my herb bed from now on.  It's the perfect fall-back garlic to cover for a poor year.   Meanwhile my "main crop" doesn't seem quite ready.  They still have 6 green leaves and are just turning brown at the tips, so I'm leaving the rest for another week or so.