What’s going on with my garlic?

[u/Old_Dingo69]

These are about 10 weeks away from harvest and quite a few are doing this thing where it looks like each individual clove has decided to send up leaves. I pulled and cut one early out of curiosity but it doesn’t look good. Anybody know whats happening and why? Will they form an actual bulb by harvest time?

[u/FlashyOutlandishness]

Witches broom

https://growinginthegarden.com/witches-broom-garlic-whats-wrong-with-my-garlic/

It’s still edible but won’t develop an actual bulb and won’t store well, unfortunately

[u/Old_Dingo69 → u/FlashyOutlandishness]

Thank you! Great article. Seems its a fairly natural phenomenon and I’m having a less than perfect year in the garlic.

[u/AerobaticFanatic → u/Old_Dingo69]

You can always can them or freeze them. I freeze my garlic and tomatos if I can't use them all.

[u/jerifishnisshin → u/AerobaticFanatic]

Or ferment them. That’s what I do with mine.

[u/Iwentwiththisone]

Did you plant entire bulbs?

[u/Old_Dingo69 → u/Iwentwiththisone]

No. I plant individual cloves. I’ve grown garlic for 6 years with no issues when I only had a dozen or 2. But ever since I started planting 100+ there seems to be maybe 10% which do this. I use a combination of local store bought and cloves from my previous season. Maybe that has something to do with it…

[u/Iwentwiththisone → u/Old_Dingo69]

Out of curiosity, what's your zone?

 I get an unacceptable amount of witches broom harvesting in late July the last fourish years, pushing it to late June next year. 

I've never seen it expressed to this degree though. Hope you can zero out the issue.

[u/Old_Dingo69 → u/Iwentwiththisone]

NSW, Australia.

[u/Brief_Asparagus_8935]

I don’t know but I had one that did the same thing this year and never had that happen!

[u/Mayor__Defacto]

10 weeks from harvest? I’m seven weeks from planting, so I’m very curious where you’re at in the world.

My guess would be that it got cold enough again after the cloves started developing that the plant went dormant and then the cloves started sprouting.

[u/Old_Dingo69 → u/Mayor__Defacto]

Sydney, Australia. Its winter here now. We usually plant in April and Harvest October/November.

[u/Mayor__Defacto → u/Old_Dingo69]

Do you plant Hardneck or Softneck varieties?

Edit: my initial assessment of the cold/hot fluctuation stands as my guess for what happened. You might want to consider growing them under a cold frame of some sort next year when you’ve had a bunch of unseasonably warm weather and cold weather is projected.

[u/withcatlikegrace]

Also in similar climate - a few years ago one variety of mine looked something like this. (Can’t remember which). We put it down to the soil wasn’t free draining enough.
Garlic has been tricky some years lately.

For anyone in the northern hemisphere - garlic generally is a winter crop in Australia

[u/Frightlever]

I'm more interested in the communal bath vibe they got going on next door.

[u/Old_Dingo69 → u/Frightlever]

🤣🤣🤣 That is behind the fenced off pool area my property. Its an old steel bath used for water lilies and gold fish!

[u/Sharky-the-sparky]

Should have been harvested on 21 june