elephant garlic question

[jnap31]

First year growing it, I have a lot selling good at the market, When I harvested it their were lots of little bulblets around the main ones, If I plant them in a bed how many years till they get huge like the parents? what is the procedure for growing them? plant in bed then transplant the 2nd year? I know most plant the big bulbs I payed $3 a lb for them so would like to utilize the little ones if possible and I can wait for them to grow. One man at market said they need to be scarafied to germinate and would take years to get big is that true?

[ChristieAcres]

I can only say what I have done and it has worked out for me. There are some HTer's on this site that are incredible at growing garlic (Martin is one of them). Here is a website he posted and there is a picture of Martin, too

http://www.wegrowgarlic.com/301.html

I was given Elephant Garlic two years ago. I only dug up the largest garlic, and left the others. Last year, I didn't harvest that much garlic, now have 30 feet of Elephant Garlic. What I did was to overwinter what I didn't dig up, then separate the plants in the Spring. What do the rest of you, who know more (not hard on this topic, as I know not much yet), do with your Garlic?

[garliclady]

The first year you plant corms you will get a solid the next year you should get really med size cloved garlics or a large solid. We usually harvest all our e garlic but do have left over corms and small solids that may have gotten left accidently. Planting corms to get solids is not a bad idea to multiply your seed stock if you are willing to wait a 2-3 of years. You can check out our farm website to see our elephant or look at my avitar. The garlic I am holding weighed 1.6 pounds at harvest and it was a volunteer from the previous year!
BTW Paying $3.00 per lbs for them was a great price!!

[Paquebot]

Some who have allowed it to naturalize often report 4 separate stages of growth with the first year being little more than a garlic leek scallion. I know that it takes at least 3 years here to get a large round when starting from corms. An annoying thing is that they may remain in the ground for several years before sprouting. Every time I think that an area has been cleared of elephant garlic, another volunteer comes up.

If anyone is planning to get elephant garlic from Karen & Mike, it won't be available this year. The past 2 years, half of the harvest were only rounds just as happens with me. I'm keeping them going with 20 or so planted from 3" rounds. That's the only way that we can assure getting large divided bulbs. Looking good so far.

Martin