Re: [gardeners] garlic/onions
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Thu, 01 Oct 1998 10:14:42
At 09:55 PM 9/30/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi Gardeners,
> Boy, this is a great discussion on garlic and onions, two of my
>favorite flavors. I have a couple of publications on growing garlic and
>onions in Texas from the extension service. They recommend that you
>never plant garlic deeper than 1 inch, onions have different depths
>depending upon whether you are planting sets, seeds, or transplants.
>Seeds and sets are planted 3/4" deep and transplants, "Do not transplant
>onions more than 1" deep".
That's weird, the LA extension agent told us to plant garlic cloves 3 times
the length of the clove. Since some of the cloves were 1 inch long I
planted them 3 inches deep and harvested my first ever garlic.
> We grew Texas White garlic last year and harvested just under a
>bushel, bulbs about the size of a tennis ball to baseball size. The
>smaller bulbs did come from smaller cloves, about the size of a #2
>pencil.
There's not that much difference in my climate and yours, maybe the Texas
White would do well here. Will run across the border and see if I can get
some.
> George, do you have gumbo soil? Back home on the Texas coast that's
>the type of soil that we had. We never did grow very good bulbing
>onions. Bunching onions and shallots did ok. My soil here is sandy loam,
>acidic.
Our soil is heavy gumbo clay overlain by a thin layer of topsoil. Our main
garden is a raised bed, 13X24, and filled with imported topsoil and has
been heavily improved with organic matter. Garlic does so-so, onions not so
well. Our biggest bulbing onions have been about the size of a golf ball if
that.
> I've taken up enough space and time, so I'm outa here.
>Allen
>Bastrop Co., Tx
>Zone 8
>
Very informative post Allen. Thanks.
George