Green Garlic

Just a quick question. I'm interested in growing green garlic, and wanted to know if it can be grown from bulbils? I don't want to wait months on end for it, this is going to be sold at market and in my CSA. But I've never grown it before (I've grown full sized garlic). I know you can grow it from cloves, but I wonder if buying bulbils and planting them, if they will mature at the same speed, or close to the same speed, as it would if I used actual cloves. Any advice is appreciated.

Brandon McGinnity wrote:Just a quick question. I'm interested in growing green garlic, and wanted to know if it can be grown from bulbils? I don't want to wait months on end for it, this is going to be sold at market and in my CSA. But I've never grown it before (I've grown full sized garlic). I know you can grow it from cloves, but I wonder if buying bulbils and planting them, if they will mature at the same speed, or close to the same speed, as it would if I used actual cloves. Any advice is appreciated.

Yes, you should be able to grow it from seed, corm, bulbils.

I can get seed and such in buckets at our seed-swaps. But we normally plant in the fall.

The best is to grow from cloves.

When I have planted not using cloves I found that I had a 2 year delay.

Isn't it an invasive weed where you are?  --Forest Service Weed of the Week

I have to wonder how grocery stores can charge for garlic, when all one has to do is go out into the back yard with some scissors.  

Galen Young wrote:
Yes, you should be able to grow it from seed, corm, bulbils.

I can get seed and such in buckets at our seed-swaps. But we normally plant in the fall.

The best is to grow from cloves.

When I have planted not using cloves I found that I had a 2 year delay.

So even to get just green garlic for bunching it will take two years? I'm not trying to get full cloves (because I know that would require planting in fall). I'm trying to get a crop this year. I am unclear on how long it takes to get to a harvestable size.

For where I am is say no. I planted some from bulbils this past November. They are hard-neck. They will not be big enough to harvest this year even though I have given them real nice care and ample time. The cloves are doing great, but I'd give the bulbils a second year. You want returning customers and trying to peel "green garlic" is hell. We still have some from last year because I just got to the point of refusing to deal with it, and I grew it.

As for garlic greens, sometimes they taste pretty grassy, so I'd watch trying to sell that.

Now, I have used small garlics in pickling because you don't have to peel them. You could sell them under this caviet at a discount...Me thinks.

I sell garlic scallions at the farmer's market. They are weeds that I pull from the garden. Bulbil grown plants are small and slow growing, so not worth the labor of picking. So if I were purposefully growing garlic scallions, they would be grown from cloves.

A variety with super-large fast-growing bulbils might be suitable for creating a crop of bulbil-grown scallions.

Cloves are expensive. We had the bright idea of gathering all the seeds, corms, bulbils and planting them as a method of saving money. [10 mature garlic plants producing 1,000+ garlic plants in one season] Four years later and I still do not have 1,000 garlic plants.

In theory you should be able to propagate garlic this way. In reality how do people propagate garlic? In reality they divide the individual cloves and plant them.

Your results may vary.

Thanks everyone. I thought it would be a cool addition but I think I'm going to skip it. Maybe plant some this fall for fully mature plants next year.

Galen Young wrote:Cloves are expensive. We had the bright idea of gathering all the seeds, corms, bulbils and planting them as a method of saving money. [10 mature garlic plants producing 1,000+ garlic plants in one season] Four years later and I still do not have 1,000 garlic plants.

In theory you should be able to propagate garlic this way. In reality how do people propagate garlic? In reality they divide the individual cloves and plant them.

Your results may vary.

Interesting. I have the plants from my bulbils. It's not quite bulbing time, but I assume being clones we'll get a tiny bulb the first year. I haven't counted how many we'll get because they are to small to care about and I have them mixed in with my potato onions, clove garlic, and shallots.

I do know that onion/garlic seed is supposed to only have like a 1 year life expectancy, so last year when I let them all go to seed meant this year I'm pawning off seedlings​ on everyone. 😁

I planted garlic cloves around my roses two or three falls ago and it has perennialized.  Not only have the cloves divided repeatedly, it seems to have set seed all over that garden, which is just fine with me.   But it did take three years for it to become abundant and not just a handful of cloves dividing.  I love them as a soup garnish in the spring...a nice little spring tonic without being too pungent.  More and more I understand that abundance takes time.