Nice video, and a great tip. But there is something to watch out for when doing this that I learned the hard way after planting only the largest cloves for 15 years or more. By only using the largest cloves for seed, you are inadvertently selecting for heads with fewer cloves. If you have two bulbs the same size, the one with fewer cloves will have larger cloves, which you will choose for seed. After 10-15 years of doing this most of my garlic only had three massive cloves per plant. The problem with that is that to keep the same number of plants each year, you have to use 1/3 of your harvest for next year's seed! Since I figured this out, I've been planting the largest cloves from the bulbs that contained the largest number of cloves. My stock now gives me bulbs with 4-6 large cloves, so I only have to use 1/5 of my harvest for seed.

@carmenortiz5294

11 ай бұрын

Thank for posting this. I was wondering about what you mention. I have had that issue come up.

@whome9936

10 ай бұрын

This is really interesting. Good thinking.

@marthaanne3263

10 ай бұрын

Thanks for the expert advice! I'm really curious about long term selection and land races.

@josephnadrignola1951

10 ай бұрын

Great tip. I wondered about that. Like you, I’m more interested in number of cloves than size alone.

@tailmask4886

9 ай бұрын

this is an excellent selective breeding tip

What we've done here in Spain for literally centuries is just tie off the plant to stop sending nutrients to the top green part and fatten up the garlic head in the ground, and it works very well. Also works with onions.

@billhill4929

11 ай бұрын

Should I just snip the stems back?

@cindys.w.8566

11 ай бұрын

@@billhill4929 NO. TIE the top they wrote... NOT CUT IT OFF! SMH!!!

@calmblueocean7243

11 ай бұрын

​@@cindys.w.8566 it was a fair enough question, no need to be so rude!🙄

@RedNicole22

11 ай бұрын

When would we want to tie them off?

@stanheeres3218

11 ай бұрын

@@cindys.w.8566 no, they did NOT say tie the top. Which gets to my question. WHERE do you tie them off? top, halfway or bottom.

I've saved the flower seeds once and wife said to trow them on the compost. Well, I've plant them instead and harvested the biggest and healthiest crop ever. :-)

@georgekusz4221

Жыл бұрын

Listen to your wife, Adam did.

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

So glad to hear! Good luck this gardening season and thanks for watching :)

@lc1102

11 ай бұрын

I threw mine in the compost and grew in the edge of the compost without planting! Awesome

@hogue3666

11 ай бұрын

Nice. So let's just took two years?

@americangrit7759

6 ай бұрын

I use the flower seeds in salads ❤

I love that you were amazed by the size of the garlics, when I was actually amazed by the quality of your soil. 👏🏼

Your giggling enthusiasm is totally infectious, i love that you love what you are doing

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

Gee! Thanks Jon :) Sure right about that, definitely love what I am doing! Thanks for watching

That is why I plant small cloves half-way between properly-spaced large cloves. In the spring I have an early harvest of the small ones to use as scallions or spring onions. That restores the space for larger bulbs but makes more efficient use of my beds.

@vaclavhanusekv1717

Жыл бұрын

Nice idea of treating smaller cloves as green garlic, nice. Too late for me to try, tho, welp, I'll try it your way in 6,5 months.Although I hope for all my heads to be huge, I chose the best straings of garlic from my last years' test.

@GoAwayNow-iz3du

Жыл бұрын

Nice. There's room & a use for everyone. =)

@MikeR65

Жыл бұрын

Why not just plant spring onions in between . The garlic.

@bthyme

Жыл бұрын

@@MikeR65 I could - might try that. Then I would just keep the small cloves for cooking instead of planting.

@vaclavhanusekv1717

Жыл бұрын

@@MikeR65 Green garlic is not the same as spring onion (btw I never buy specific spring onion variety, I always have bulbing varieties but I just sometimes choose to use them for leaves. About garlic - people choose to use it as green garlic for its taste and its milder qualities, but Im not sure about putting it in between, because I need to move in there sometimes. Well I need to make my beds thinner so I can get in there from both sided... Probably yeah, but I wouldnt like to steel much space from my regular garlic. I was already thinking about putting some lettuce in between. It could act as a cover crop plus garlic just feels like too much space unsused.

I always say, plant the best and eat the rest! Klaus

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

Love that!!

@lana11111

Жыл бұрын

Not chwab 😂he would not give you such an advise

Try planting some small cloves close together about 2” apart in a 9” pot. Keep moist don’t feed and let them grow through the winter into summer. Let them die back and leave in the pot till autumn. Remove from pot when your planting your garlic. They won’t have divided and will be spherical fat cloves. Plant as you would any garlic clove and harvest really big bulbs next year. It’s a phaff the first year but pays dividends if done well.

I love how you giggle during harvesting! That's the reason why I want to do gardening too. I want to feel the same way.

I take the largest clove from each bulb I harvest. Why plant so late in the season? I plant early, in Oct/Nov and have lots of leaves that mostly survive under the snow, Zone 5!. When the snow melts my garlic patch is already 5-6 inches tall.

I couldn't find good seed garlic from the local co-op, so I just used store bought, softneck Chinese garlic (smaller bulbs). I added homemade compost, horse manure, leaf mold and mulched with pine needles. The necks are thick as broom handles right now, and I won't harvest for another month or so from now. Can't wait to see the bulb sizes this year

@tombolo4120

Жыл бұрын

Sounds like there might be other tips. I remember hearing there're dozens of varities though, so . . .

@gabec2494

Жыл бұрын

@@tombolo4120 tricks?

I cut the green leaves over and over, chopped them (I do the same with my chives), and added them to a variety of foods (stews, bruschetta, cheese spreads, on top of stakes, burgers, mashed potatoes....), while the bulb gets bigger and bigger in the ground; I leave some in the ground and the following year it comes again.

@emilysandstrom2476

Жыл бұрын

heat in butter with basil (baby, early) leaves

Great to see this much of a difference! The first time (2 years ago) I did garlic, I just used whatever my husband was ignoring when he selected one for cooking. So I ended up with all the teeny tiny ones. This year (or last year, I mean), I stole all the chunkiest ones so I can have a bigger harvest (and then also planted the ones he'd been ignoring in a tub indoors so I can harvest as green garlic earlier). I'll be interested to see the difference - I definitely think my garlic harvest last year was smaller than it could have been thanks to the cloves I used. Can't wait to see the results!

This video comes in handy. I’ve never grown garlic before but I already have some large cloves put aside for planting because I figured bigger cloves might mean bigger bulbs. It’s autumn now so I’m looking forward to my first garlic harvest.

I l admire how gleeful you were harvesting your garlic! i was inspired to plant some in start pots after I notice a head starting to grow in my kitchen.

Love your joy and passion in and for the garden! Good stuff.

I love your enthusiasm,it made me smile 😊 I’m about to grow garlic for the first time. Thank you, I love it.

I like to plant the tiny cloves that are too small to be worth the time to peel and eat and then continuously harvest the greens. Delicious.

@lorettaviecelli359

Жыл бұрын

I like that idea...think i'll try it..thanks

@JS-jl1yj

Жыл бұрын

I grow the hard neck garlic. The bulbs have only 4 - 7 cloves, which are big. No tiny cloves. I may plant a few tiny cloves of the Chinese garlic to use as greens. Thanks for the idea.

Incredible man! Great energy Thank-you for weighing out the yield.

I had found the same thing. I don't give them great soil. But they still can grow quite large. One thing I found was that the time of planting was critical to getting large garlic. Too early and they go to flower before winter. Too late and they have no size before the cold weather comes. I am in the southern hemisphere but have found that if I plant about the second week of March the plants put on plenty of leaf and can take full advantage of the weaker winter sun and continue to grow during the cooler months. Giving a much bigger yield than plants that are put in during April which don't get enough leaf early enough.

Thank you for doing this, I wanted to do this growing season myself. Saved me mate👍

Is there any noticeable difference in the flavor profiles of the small vs large bulbs? Does smaller = more intense flavor and larger = milder flavor? Or vice versa?

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

I'm not 100% sure - but think I might have to do a taste test to find out! haha

@SunfireWoods

Жыл бұрын

@@MindandSoil Please do, it'd be a good follow up video. 😀

@DaisyIdes

Жыл бұрын

This would be my question too.

@sheilasydneynotyerbizniz2933

Жыл бұрын

Yes when they stay smaller, the taste is more intense so you need less. I bet nutritionwise there will be a higher concentration in the smaller ones as well.

@moodshorts3359

Жыл бұрын

@@MindandSoil how the taste

Got the giggles from your reaction 👍🏽 Congrats on those beautiful garlic!!

I clicked on this all excited, then my reaction went to: DUH, of course! I have always planted the biggest cloves of the biggest bulbs. This reminds me of a Psychology Today study, years ago. It ‘proved’ that rich people have less stress because they do not have to worry about money.

@MikeR65

Жыл бұрын

Yeah I like how he is pretending he discovered something. This has been a well known fact for a long time.

Excellent information! Many thanks

Variety of garlic also makes a big difference in size . From all the varieties that I grow Music had the largest bulbs. I actually planted small to medium size Music garlic last year and they still formed extra large bulbs.

@MindandSoil

10 ай бұрын

Music is a great variety! Great to hear about the garlic garden successes! woot!

OMG I've wondered about this. Thanks for showing us results!

@MindandSoil

9 ай бұрын

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching :)

Love the seriously geeky research gardener approach. ❤

I'm new here. I was actually thinking I needed to look at adding a bit more things on top of the garlic in the spring. Thank you for teaching. God bless

Great experiment indeed. Thanks for sharing 🙏

I just found you and started following you. I have always wanted to grow garlic. After seeing your video, I am so excited to try growing my own garlic.

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

Great! So glad to hear :) Wishing you a great gardening season and thanks for watching!

Great video. Every time you uproot a big garlic, I'm grinning from ear to ear. Thanks.

Credible and helpful! Thanks for posting.

Great video! Just planted my garlic!!

@MindandSoil

7 ай бұрын

Woo hoo! Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching :)

Hi, im from croatia, mediterranean. I planted 5 kilos and got only 1 kilo haha. We call it, right hand, left pocket haha

Wow, very interesting results.

I did a very similar experiment, selecting the smallest cloves I could find and replanting the cloves that resulted. After two years they were back up to average size. The garlic variety was Mikulov, an overwintering type.

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

Interesting! Thanks for watching :)

Fascinating ! I must try this , thanks ! 😊

Hello, good experiment, i will try that next season here in the U K .

Wonderful experiment on garlic. Thank you

@MindandSoil

8 ай бұрын

So glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching :)

Larger cloves have weaker flavor. Selecting for larger cloves is good if youre selling by the lb. Larger cloves are also a bit easier to work with, but for home culinary use smaller has more flavorful. Also, a little hori hori trick: instead of using the tip as your starting point, measuring 6", pressing your fingers at 6" then moving the hori hori, put the 6" mark at the starting point of your measure, then your tip is exactly where you want to press it into the soil. Really speeds up planting

@bethgracehallmark2219

6 ай бұрын

My #1 question. Thank you for answering that!

Hello from Ontario! You like to experiment. Try leaving a few garlic bulbs to over winter a second year. I've tried it last fall and now (April) there are multiple shoots, as expected. Looking forward to seeing the harvest this summer. I read that the bulb should be much bigger. Al in Canada.

@laurenecarter246

Жыл бұрын

I accidentally missed some garlic bulbs, and they started sprouting the following autumn. I dug them up, separated them, and they grew really well. I'm keen to experiment and leave them in again. Maybe 2 times more, and see if I get even bigger cloves 😊

@donaldduck830

Жыл бұрын

Funny. I always miss a few that come back by themselves.

@donaldduck830

Жыл бұрын

@@laurenecarter246 Actually not really. I did some mixed planting to prevent pests in my strawberries. I did not harvest the garlic because I wanted the strawberries, but they don't grow bigger, they only split and you get multiple smaller shoots.

@laurenecarter246

Жыл бұрын

@@donaldduck830 oh very interesting. Thank you for letting me know 😊

@gabriellakadar

Жыл бұрын

@@donaldduck830 But you do get multiple bulbs all together in a cluster. I've got a few of them this year.

Great experiment thanks for sharing 👍

Great test thanks. Have you ever tried tying off the tops as another viewer suggested? I think I will do both.

Interesting. I planted garlic for the first time last fall. My friend gave me large bulbs with super large cloves. I harvested bulbs a third of the size she gave me. Haven’t actually checked the clove size yet as they’re still drying. Regardless, I’ll be more than pleased with my homegrown garlic. Thanks for the tips.

Thanks for doing this!

Nice experiment, thank you!

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

Welcome! Thanks for watching :)

Love gardening so I find this interesting.

Nice tip !

When performing selection, there's always pros and cons. Keeping good records each year is very helpful.

Elephant garlic is easier to grow and has even larger heads. You all should grow both. Elephant garlic isn't great for stir-fry because it requires a lot more oil, but is awesome for wetter dishes such as soups or in boiling rice. The green tops are also delicious. After a few years, you may never need to replant elephant garlic as its "babies" tend to hide in the soil after you harvest the large bulb.

Nice ce one bro great experiment

Awesome! Love the experiments.

Nice visual thanks

No surprise there!!! Genetic selection always wins. Been trying to work on growing garlic for the 2nd year now and I am trying to work with nature here since we have extreme hot and freezing cold here in the desert and garlic seems to mature in 10-12 months... Since you're in Canada, any advice to keep them warm and keep them cool during summer? thanks!!!

That is a great fiendish garlic laugh !

May know when the exact time to plant garlic and when the exact time to harvest thank you very much for the I Imformation

There is a trick my grandmother use to do twisting the green part of the garlic, so doing that the feed goes to the bulb and not to the leaves, making the garlic bulb bigger. I'm in proces to do like that to, see how it goes 😜

@single_use_planet_

Жыл бұрын

Twisting? Can u explain more? 🤔

@MikeR65

Жыл бұрын

I’ve heard that too. It’s a couple of weeks before you harvest.

@rahelapanzariu1528

Жыл бұрын

Practically you grab the green leaves twisting and laing down on the ground

Nice work. Thanks.

@MindandSoil

9 ай бұрын

Appreciate that :) Thanks for watching!

Great experiment. Thank you

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

Thanks so much! Keep your eyes peeled for more over the next few weeks!!

Real great scientific approach!

Totally, every year i save my largest cloves to plant for the next season. This year has been on of my bests with all but two of the heads being very large. 😊

Great video explains a lot and it also depends upon the type of garlic you grow. There is one variety called Elephant garlic that is naturally very large but it is closer to the leek than true garlic. It is a bit milder and sweeter than normal somewhere between garlic and onion

@dispmonk

Жыл бұрын

It’s not like a leek it is absolutely a leek.

@marionmoore665

11 ай бұрын

I planted two this year first time ever.😂😊

@denisekalt3390

11 ай бұрын

I’ve been growing elephant garlic successfully for years in the Phoenix area, 9b. I now plant them around my roses to offer more insect protection as well as in my raised beds. You can also replant the little seed garlic or tiny cloves that the bulbs produce. It takes 2 years for them to produce cloves but it’s very easy to grow here and tasty too! Use the greens in soup.

Great job you did 👍

Great experiment. Thank you sir 🙏.

@MindandSoil

9 ай бұрын

Glad it was helpful! Thank you for watching :)

Talk about data-driven results! I did this this year and my garlic is waist high now with very large stalks. Can’t wait for the results. Great video!

New subscriber here. Love your garlic experiment. I’m going to get stuck into the garlic growing. Thanks heaps

@MindandSoil

8 ай бұрын

So glad you found it helpful :) Thanks for watching!

Dang. I’m just getting started raising garlic, so this is going to be helpful.

I grew garlic regularly and always tried to use the biggest cloves and tried a mix of different types especially organic . Apparently the Chinese ' wash' Thier commercial garlic in Sodium Benzoate 😮😐 ....not what anyone should ever do !!! I usually grew around 60 to 80 each time . I once tried growing almost 300 bulbs but noticed the more I grew ....the weaker the flavour !! Always planted it late August /early September and harvested the following July/August. Great video and very interesting...thank you 😀👍🇬🇧

I’m so happy for you ❤

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for watching :)

Brilliant!!!!:thank you!

Well done from Ireland

Thanks for sharing!

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

Woo! My pleasure!

An offsetting aspect is the amount of leaves produced. If you plant small cloves, they will make smaller leaves and use less area. My hypothesis is that the sunlight is the limiting aspect. with small cloves you could get the same yield per unit area of plot from a larger number of plantings. The choice is then how big do you want your garlic?

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

I was super happy with my clove sizes and found them perfect for the dishes I was regularly making at home :)

That’s cool. I would have predicted that type of result, but it’s certainly striking to see visually so black and white, cheers🎉

@MindandSoil

7 ай бұрын

I agree! It also keeps things interesting to trial different ideas or concepts in the garden for fun :) Thanks for watching!

Great experiment!

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

Thanks so much Leslie!

What a wonderful Samba Festival. Have a great weekend friend. New friend from New Jersey, USA.

We took our small cloves and planted them in our garden as perennials. They grow crowded but we eat the greens in spring, chop them in the summer and eat them again in the fall, and use the large cloves for bulb garlic.

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

Great idea! Thanks for sharing :) I love the scapes on the top!

I eat my small ones, sell the medium size in market and plant the largest. They get bigger every year. I put in a heaping tablespoon of bonemeal or fish emulsion/ bonemeal when I plant.

@kurtdowney1489

Жыл бұрын

Where do you live and when do you plant? How deep?

@robertdouglas8895

Жыл бұрын

@@kurtdowney1489 Zone 4. N Idaho. 3 inches deep with 4 inches of hay mulch. First week of October.

@kurtdowney1489

Жыл бұрын

@@robertdouglas8895 Thank you I am in Colorado very short growing season and am really struggling.

Garlic is one of the only plants that clones itself.. nice presentation

I have a real problem with storage as it is a new house with no sheds, so I buy sets the sets seemed to be big but the garlic was small - meanly strong though! I grow from September through to July - a friend said they might give me some jumbo garlic from the US - I hope so because the tax involved for buying from US - France is at least 25 bucks on top of postage!

I've been growing garlic for about 5 years now, and the advice we give in Europe is that you don't feed them ANYTHING. THey don't need anything, just like onions and shallots. But for some reason many American gardening channels claim that they're nitrogen heavy and need a lot of fertilizer, it couldn't be further from the truth. These few things will increase your yield more than any fertilizer : 1) Don't plant them that deep. The tip of the clove should poke out in the air. It helps with big bulbs, as it grows outwards easier, especially in my clay soil. 2) Instead of fertilizer, you just need humus. And for that, you only need mulch. I put 15-20 cm of wood chips on my garlics when I plant them. And that's all I do. In March, there's usually a weeding chore I Have to do coz some weeds have come through usually, and in May there's usually a lack of rain in France with global warming, so they need one good soaking in May. That's it. Also, for garlic, it's useless to have ginormous heads. You want big heads ? Grow elephant garlic. But bigger heads means less flavor. Because for giant heads with normal garlic you need nitrogen, which makes the cells expand, soak up water, and dilute the taste. Of course, the heads you harvested from small cloves were too small, but the other ones are fine, and I usually get mostly this caliber. Again, just with woodchips, nothing else.

Would have loved to see what percentage of the cloves in the large heads were considered jumbo.

mine are significantly larger... Russian Red in Vancouver,, 140 heads last year. So easy to grow!

i can affirm that everything you said in this video is true, i proved it to myself; now all my wife gets to use are small cloves. soon there will be no small cloves. i planted corms last summer, not seeing any success yet; but it's been a real cold spring. i'm going to learn some more from you as a new subscriber. thanks

@gabriellakadar

Жыл бұрын

That's what I tell my allotment buddies: eat the small ones, plant the big ones. Eventually you should have only big ones. But it also depends on irrigation. Last year was super dry and the irrigated ones grew enormous. The ones that didn't underperformed. Some people claim that garlic doesn't need irrigating but that's incorrect when we are having drought conditions. So far this year it's been rain and rain and more rain. Good thing to grow garlic in well drained super high organic soil because with all this rain, anything less will end up with rotten garlic.

A very good video.garlic is easy.I’ve found that large cloves make large bulbs.I’ve been planting garlic for 15 years.some varieties are smaller. I grow a lot of German white. I still get some 3” inch bulbs but no smaller than 2”.the same garlic replanted every year.fertilizer is key at planting in fall and in the spring .

@MindandSoil

9 ай бұрын

Thank you for sharing! Glad you enjoyed it :)

Harika bir deney

"Someone ring the honker alarm" had me rollin' 😂 non-gardners just don't understand how happy it genuinely makes people just digging around in plant. Top stuff my guy 😊

Difference in intensity of flavour between large and small? If you need to use more, or if the larger cloves spoil before you've used them up, then the difference in size is academic only.

Nice garlic. Great guns.

Just my 2 cents, I added quite a few expired methylated b-complex capsules to water jugs every time I watered the garlic and also when prepping the soil it made a huge difference from previous years. Next year I'll have to try your trick out.

@MikeR65

Жыл бұрын

It’s not his trick . That’s been well known for a long time.

@molochsorcery4357

Жыл бұрын

@@MikeR65 Oh BFD. AS IF anything is NEW on YT. You talk as if you expect to find some unexpected 'trick' hidden somewhere. There's nothing new under the Sun. If you believe there is then you're a bloody fool.

Just came across you on here, and glad I did. :) Thank you for this video, and I look forward to your others! (liked and now subscribed!) and a fellow Canadian too :)

Did you weigh the small and larger cloves before planting? Also, it may be with the smaller cloves you could have planted them on the 4" mark, something to consider. That way the final mass might have been closer to each other.

QUESTION: How can you tell which is a flower, and which is actually GARLIC? When I moved to TN there is a "wild flower" that looks exactly like a garlic scape! How do I know in this new garden growing wild, which is which, without just yanking them out?

Glad to see you know the best medicine on the planet Great video

@MindandSoil

9 ай бұрын

You bet! Soul- food. Thanks for watching :)

What is the best fertilizer for growing garlic.

Thank you, brother, thank you.

@MindandSoil

Жыл бұрын

So glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching :)

PS I hope you’ll do a taste comparison btwn the small and large cloves as others have suggested. 😃

When the plants take off again in the Spring, work a little bone meal ( the P in NPK ) into the garlic bed.

This a great experiment.

@MindandSoil

9 ай бұрын

I agree! Thanks for watching :)