November 19, 2015

Garlic Planted in November in Styrofoam Containers

Unknown red hardneck garlic variety. All 8 cloves, and 2 out of 3 tiny bulbettes have sprouted.
I finally planted the last of the garlic in styrofoam boxes last week. 50 cloves were planted in 4 boxes, I've been debating whether or not to plant another box of garlic.

4 garlic varieties were planted. Rossa di Sulmona is a pungent hardneck variety that I purchased online, my husband cooked some tomato sauce with leftover cloves and it was wonderfully sweet and spicy. Viola Francese is a softneck type that was also purchased online. There's an unknown red hardneck variety that was purchased at a grocery store in March which I remember to be exceptionally tasty, and the cloves being fairly old had just begun to sprout. And lastly there's an unknown white softneck variety that was purchased recently at the same grocery store, surprisingly the cloves looked like they might have started forming roots before being planted.

The garlic was planted about 2 inches deep and maybe 4-5 inches apart. The styrofoam containers are actually shipping containers that would normally get thrown away, so they are thicker and bigger than most styrofoam coolers. It's been raining the last 3 days so the boxes have been hanging out under cover. As an experiment I removed the papery skins off the cloves of the unknown varieties before planting.

And today it looks like all 4 garlic varieties have a few cloves sprouting out of the soil.

10 comments:

Margaret said...

My memory is not the greatest so I've gotta ask why you are planting your garlic in the containers instead of in the ground. Is it because you are trying to grow it in the "off season" for your climate or are you going for green garlic or is it because pests...? BTW those containers are great! I've been thinking of possibly doing some "Norma-esque" experiments in the future using Styrofoam containers.

Texan said...

My garlics popped up super fast as well! I too had some left over so plan to eat it! I put in the elephant garlic, at the last minute I decided to plant California early and late white garlic as well. Its suppose to do well here in our climate LOL I have planted way more than we will need but it will give me plenty for seed then next year. :O)

Will be interesting to see how yours do in the styro containers!

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David Velten said...

It will be interesting to see how they do in the containers. Spacing and depth sounds OK. The Sulmona and Viola Francese are Mediterranean varieties that should do OK in your climate. I planted both a couple years ago and they did not do well for me so I didn't replant. But both are considered gourmet varieties and well worth trying.

Phuong said...

Hi Margaret,
My husband is going to rotatill the whole yard in the spring to rake it flat and seed non-garden areas with grass, the ground is very uneven with bare spots. I had already purchased seed garlic when he told me his plans, hopefully they'll do ok in containers.

I'm glad you mentioned how different Kolibri is from the White Vienna kohlrabi, my White Vienna are swelling well so I might end up with a few bulbs before winter decimates them.

Phuong said...

Hi Texan,
That's great that you planted so much garlic, you'll be able to be extravagant when you use it.

You mentioned how onions don't bulb up for you, I have the exact same problem. I was just wondering whether you had heavy clay soil as well. My coworker said that they only planted onion sets and they had to push the soil away from the forming bulbs so they could get bigger. It must be the heavy clay soil that makes it so difficult for onions.

Phuong said...

Hi David,
I'm glad you said Sulmona and Viola Francese are good garlic, I had the hardest time picking out varieties.

I've started getting seed catalogues in the mail. Let the fun begin!

Dave @ HappyAcres said...

I'm betting the garlic does well for you in those containers. I've grown it in window boxes before, and they only tricky part was keeping it watered when the weather was dry.

Phuong said...

Hi Dave,
I'm very hopeful that the garlic does well. I have such issues growing onions and leeks here, it would be nice to have a garlic success.

We had our first hard freeze last night which finally took out the eggplant, peppers, and basil. Your garden looks like it's holding up great. How did your peppers do in the greenhouse?

Dave @ HappyAcres said...

I have now brought all the peppers inside to the basement, under grow lights. It froze in the greenhouse the last two nights, so everything left out there can take the cold.

Phuong said...

Hi Dave,
That's good you had the foresight to bring the peppers in before the really cold weather hit. My houseplants have to like a dry climate otherwise they die a slow thirsty death, so I no longer try to bring my peppers or eggplants inside.