I know this in an old video, but after watching your first one, I picked up some elephant garlic at my local winco grocery store for $3.99 a head. I think they had 4 or 5 cloves, but I don't remember. Anyway, I planted them in my raised beds last fall, and I'm harvesting them now. I think I waited a little too long because the bulbs are separating a bit. It won't matter to much, because I just grew it for myself and family. I just wanted to let you know that you Inspired me to grow them, and the raised beds worked great. I'm in California zone 9b. Good luck to you with it! I love your enthusiasm and optimism. 😊❤
Very honest feedback is the tip for you find an area of garden cover it with two layers of cardboard then cover this with 6 inches of compost (hopefully from your own compost heap plant into the compost from mid September to mid-October in northern hemisphere if you’ve made your compost correctly you should have no wheat seeds and it will be very easy to pull out any weeds that germinate from windblown seeds the two layers of cardboard will act as a weed barrier for any seeds or perennial roots that may exist underneath the cardboard..You should be harvesting in June the following year.Then re-planting in September.I’m surprised that your garlic didn’t grow the weeds wouldn’t have stopped the garlic growing although they might have inhibited the size of the bulbs. You have to be very careful with your seed supplies. I would ask to see a photo of their crop growing in the field as many people buy from Chinese suppliers or other locations where the crop may not be organic and may have been sprayed with sprouting inhibitors. Just buy a few to get started unless you have been to visit to check the viability of the seed. Good luck and do you try again once you get good seed garlic is one of the most abundant and easy to grow crops.
I'm happy you didn't give up because failure isn't a bad thing...Failure are the things that we don't know. I've failed so many times but it's that one time I've pushed through to make it! You inspire me and my family for not giving up on dreams!!! thank you!
Thank you for the transparency of your experience. I was and still am highly encouraged to try it! I ordered the elephant garlic from the same seller. I just googled them.
Awesome concept. I watched your original video and was so hoping for your success. I just purchased a few bulbs and will be planting this week in a 50'x3' raised bed that I hope to convert entirely to the elephant garlic. Thanks for your honesty with the results.
Thank you for sharing your experience. We purchased a property which had already beds with giant garlic planted. I thought it was leeks until the previous owner enlighten me. I had zero experience growing garlic. Thank you for sharing.
Wow just came across this. Was hoping that your garlic adventure did good for you. Sorry it was a flop the first time around. Was a good idea and goal I was impressed. Keep pressing forward and don’t give up. I see this was a year ago so I’m really hoping all went well for you. Thanks for sparking that little fire inside.
I grow lots of garlic in my zone 3 garden. A little trick to get more bulbs, after you clip off the scapes put them in a cool dry place and they will use the long stem and continue to grow into garlic seed. This seed will take a few extra years to grow into big garlic bulbs but it is FREE and will increase your amount to bulbs much faster than using the bulbs alone. Make sure you mulch with lots of straw to keep the moisture even and weeds down or you will end up with tiny bulbs.Also garlic is a heavy feeder and I put fresh barn clean out from our goats in the paths as a natural weed barrier and every second year I turn that walk way into the growing row for lots of garlic in the same area year after year. Good luck, doing is the best learning of all so don't give up. Farmers markets and nicer local restaurants are a great place to start selling and get lots of feed back on your product.
Stick with it, I had the same learning curve, I don't know what it is with garlic and weeds but geeeez!! I did my fav garlic not your kind and started with 10 bulbs 4 years ago. I now have 1000 growing out there and the type I grow has 5 to 6 cloves per bulb so I will be planting 4 to 6 thousand this fall. I am going to need some help, lol The hardest part is not eating my seed garlic.
Your real success was right in your arms. Thank you for your video you have inspired many I’m sure. I watch very few videos to the end but I did yours.
Hi and thanks for the valuable information and one organic pesticide, that you can use to deal with the weeds, and insect lava, on your crops, and plants, ( Use or consider using( 🐰 Rabbit, urine) it will kill the weeds and the insect lava, without destroying your Elephant 🐘 Garlic, and othe crops. All the Best to your continued success. And keep up your good works.
I planted Elephant Garlic in the fall. So nervous to see if it come up. I am planning to let some bloom since it has a beautiful flower. Then I want to try some as leek since it is accually a leek. And then some so eat and then some again for seed.I also covered it with straw. Before the winter. Cant wait for spring. We planted garlic before. So I think elephant garlic grow very much the same. Also....the scapes make great pesto. Remember to cut the scapes for bigger bulbs. But then you won't have flowers. Good luck with future planting. You already learned a lot.
I like your honesty. I read many comments on Amazon, people buying seeds that don't grow. Not your garlic, of course, first time for me. I wanted to buy giant bamboo. The same company was selling many other seeds and all the comments were the seeds are useless. You should make a trip and go get those seeds. But then If placed in the cargo area it might freeze. With all the rules and restrictions toward seeds from another country, be aware. This is not a negative statement they are facts. I tried growing chia and it works pretty well. I made many mistakes will try again. Good luck to everyone with new projects.
I have grown Hard neck Garlic for decades and please Do not use plastic weed barrier. I planted some elephant Garlic this past fall as an experiment and just used store bough organic heads. Plant your garlic then cover with mulch like straw or hay loosely about 3-6" nice and fluffy. You can also use arborist wood chips abut 2-3" thick in the fall over top of the Garlic. You can use this mulch approach all over the garden for everything to feed plants and lower weed pressure. Pesce
It grows wild on the old home sights all over the south , I live in Mississippi . It’s like wild roses around here . It does well here on its on with out any kind of help .Unfortunately it only gets that large in the richest soil , like say a compost pile . When it grows large like that it don’t keep well because it is full of extra water . It has a very pleasant taste like a strong onion , goes good in hush puppies and soups and anything short of slices for the table , We cook with it often but have never grown it to sale .
Weed management is key to gardening and farming. Weed mat only controls new seeds from blowing in or natural deposit. If you turn the soil before you plant you are bringing new weed seeds that were buried to the surface which will sprout even under the mat. Good luck, garlic is not the easiest plant to grow. I've had a few grow nicely but never produce a decent bulb.
You made me start planting Elephant Garlic. I waiting for mid-June july for my frist harvest. I will be replanting in late October or November. The area I will be planting is 15 x 30 ft. It will be a lot of work. But it can by myself. Thank you. Words are powerful!
Order your seeds locally, from a farm, to better ensure a successful crop. Use a cultivator and or mulch as weed control. If bugs become an issue, use a repellent early in the morning before the buds open. OSU has a good publication for those of you on the West Coast. UGA has one for my homies on the East Coast. And UW, I think, for the folks up north. This is my first year and I'm all in! Good luck yall!
I find that in zone 5b/6 its pretty easy to grow garlic, at least where i live...Just throw them in late fall, or early spring, and voila. As long as you get some good cold nights below freezing. I've done regular garlic several years but I'm planning to try elephant garlic my first time, since i found some for sale at a road side stand. We'll see how that does here.
o yes forgot to say (if you dont mind that is) i found that mulching with straw about 4"thick helped to keep the soil moist and surpress the weeds and if you leave where you first planted the garlic if they havent rotted they will come up again, at least they do for me. hope this helps
I've been growing garlic successfully in michigan for my family consumption, larger type than common garlic in the market, not sure if genuine elephant garlic. I plant in fall, in raised beds, well fertilized with cow manure compost and organic fertilizer, in a very dense planting, spaced 4"-5" apart, 3 rows in 2' wide bed. To reduce weeding, last fall, I used black plastic ground cover (felt like material in the back). To reduce labor in planting, opened cut 4" X 20" so multiples bulbs can be planted in row and allow more surface area for water penetration.
hi and thanks for great information the follow up video regardless of the result. i've grown garlic for years (hardneck and elephant). i use the ruth stout method of gardening. a part of that is covering the garden with old hay. this drastically decreases weeds. i actually grow my hardneck varieties 4" apart with very good results. the only issue i run into is if you get several days in a row that are screaming hot. they you have to water them. they hay cools the roots and slows evaporation. many benefits. thanks again and good luck 🙂
@@B30pt87 short answer: you don't. long answer: in my experience this is why most people never grow their own garlic - it just takes too long. if you grow from cloves you'll get a harvest the next year. grow from seed you'll need a few years. first year you'll get what are called rounds. it's a single clove but shaped like a bulb and are really small. the next fall you'll plant that and the following year you'll get a small bulb. the year after that you'll get a full bulb. there are benefits of growing from see but most people don't have or want that sort of time investment. hopefully that helps. if not ask away :)
@@rickabrams3422 Thank you very much. That explains it perfectly. I'm going to look up the ruth stout method too - usually "methods" are several good ideas that work well together. Thanks again!
@@B30pt87 my pleasure. simply put: layers. in the fall i put leaves to cover the garden. once all food has been harvested from plants i leave the plants to continue to grow until first frost. then i mow them all down to gain another layer. compost - you are just always making or applying layers of compostable materials. back to reality (derek and paula) have a YT channel that explains hugoculture well. enjoy :)
Happy New Year to everybody and specially for the Stary family. I am so sorry to hear that your garlic harvest was a disappointment. I am trying to grow garlic now for the first time and I am late. I should have planted it in november. Because I had to do the preparations and it is my first time and I couldn't foresee how much time that would cost, I am late now. But my planting garlic kept well, eventhough I had left it in the polytunnel, uncovered. I live in France. Just to be on top of the weeds next summer, my neighbour helped me create a little tool to burn holes in synthetic woven breathing garden coverage as we call, it, to prevent weeds growing. My tool just exists out of a used tin can. On the 'closed 'side with screws, a handle made on it so not to burn the hands and we heat the 'underside' of the tool, the open side of the tin can and push it quickly on the synthetic woven material. Because it melts it prevents from unravelling. It is not very easy to plant the garlic exactly in the middle of it but I manage with a little tool. The ground is ofcourse not as even as a concrete floor. I just think about how the weeds will not take over and I continu planting, 125, 126, etc.. 🙂 I want to also thank you for your honesty in how you answer questions about the garlic. I honestly hope that your second attempt will be succesfull. Oh, I grow hardneck white and hardneck violet garlic from this region, the Auvergne, because I had read that planting 'local' garlic makes the chances for succes bigger. I hope so! Bye bye, Stary Family and readers, I wish everybody ginormeous harvests of garlic this year.
You could also try the Ruth Stout method for weed barrier. That way it keeps feeding the soil every year to with natural compost. I’ve used and I’ll never use plastic weed barrier again.
Love your passion and channel! I planted 50 elephant garlic plants this past fall and looking to scale it up. How do you find a garlic broker to help sell the garlic?
I tried planting garlic but I failed, I don't know the secrets in the earth mixture with compost and all that fancy stuff but I have one moringa tree about 30 feet tall and it keeps on growing.
If the weeds are overwhelming instead of the black weed guard try hay or straw as it should be cheaper and beneficial. Hay and straw both help watering through the hot summers as they both keep the soil under them moist. Hay though is matured which gives nutrients and minerals to the soil as it decomposes but from this they will try and grow their seeds so in time you'll have a hay field lol. straw makes for a weedless setup but no beneficial as with hay. Just open little areas where you plan to plant. With crops like potatoes or onions they can be completely covered even grown and harvested in winter months with enough straw or hey. Best is to use older hey as it's already decomposing. With straw I'd say use fresh straw. When weeds do sneak through just throw down more atop of it.
Hey Good morning!. Hopefully this question has not been asked but, I watched the first video and was very impressed, just to be sure i didnt miss anything, I thought you just planted the cloves from the bulb of the garlic and not need to buy the seeds. I remember you said the you started with 30 bulbs, then multiplied your bulbs with the 8 cloves within each bulb. Please let me know is it still neccessary to buy the seed if you already have the bulbs. Thanks!
Try baker creek heirloom seeds. They are very good seed company. With every seed purchase I have made have had very good success. Full disclosure I haven grown elephant garlic yet-but have grown regular garlic with good success in the very wet PNW. Best of luck on your next try. You only fail if you stop trying. All the best.
Your first video seemed to suggest that you can get 2 harvests per year. In particular, you claim that one can harvest in the spring after planting the previous fall. This is clearly wrong - only one crop / harvest per year is possible in cold climate locations, like yours in Nebraska. For a fall planting, growth only BEGINS in the spring, and isn't ready for harvest until the late summer. I would request that you clarify or acknowledge your error, as you are misleading your viewers. Thank you.
@@morrismonet3554 I agree with your assessment, but there is a lot to be said for polite ways. When you "get right to the point" with a negative evaluation, it does indicate that expressing your opinion is more important to you than interacting graciously with anyone else who may read it. (You can do both, you know?)
Great videos, keep at it! “Winners are not afraid of losing. But losers are. Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.” - Robert T. Kiyosaki
Noo ho ho! Elephant Garlic is an allium technically not garlic - it's in the leek family, hence the milder flavor and smell in the kitchen. I grow several hundred onions every year scattered around my urban homestead (2/3 acre) and I don't even know they are there!
@@curiouscat3384 Thank you im a veteran in disability and would like to see if this could supplement my disability pay. I have the area 425.00 a month free water. i need seeds or bulbs to start and they not sold in my area any help appreciated
@@davehall3147 Good for you! I'm looking for something to supplement my retirement pay, haha. I am definitely going to try growing these. Unfortunately it's a year of experimentation before harvest with no guarantees. Too late to start this summer so I'll plant in Nov-Dec (North Carolina here). Also it's important to figure out where to sell it before investing time and money. I've always wanted to run a Farmers Market stall but another possibility is gourmet restaurants.
You should have sprouted them first, and even moldy cloves can grow. You can't just put them in the ground and expect good yields. Quite the opposite, actually. You will lose 50%+ if you don't grow them into seedlings first as is normal for most plants, which is why they produce so many seeds. You should have grown Hydroponic until they are big enough to survive the bugs and pests. Even though you got them late, you could have put them in water on a shelf and had big plants ready to go in the ground once spring came around. It is obvious garlic can't survive in a moist and dark utility room. The dark moist air makes it start germinating and using up nutrients, and then it dies due to lack of water. You should have done your research first about how to grow garlic instead of diving in without a clue.
It looked like a good idea to grow from watching first video. Now I'm like well what the hell happened? Seems like you kinda screwed up on growing them or maybe your just no to bright when it comes to botany