Don't PANIC If Your Garlic Is Growing Early - When to Worry + Ways to Save It

if your Garlic's sprouting early don't panic in today's episode I'm going to share with you all the things you can do to relieve your mind of worry and get your garlic up and growing so you have an amazing Harvest this season let's [Music] go now it doesn't come as a surprise that we've had a warmer winter than we usually have and that's caused a lot of our garlic to sprout and that usually brings a bunch of the fearful gardeners out and they write us emails asking if their garlic is going to be okay and you may have even started your garlic too early in in the fall and winter was late to arrive and you had garlic sprouting even in the fall and so that worry has been brewing for several months now but what you'll find is that garlic is very cold tolerant it can handle the cold now this garlic here is a hard neck variety we do have a couple soft necks but hard neck varieties are even cold harder than the soft necks so if you're planting the right type of variety for your region you're more than likely going to be fine now soft neck varieties are not quite as cold tolerant as hard neck varieties but even then we actually have it's down here we have three rows of soft necks they're up and they're growing just like the hard necks are and I'm still not worried and the reason why is a couple things and we're going to get into some things of you know that you can do if your garlic is sprouted too early and you you are fearful I'm also going to talk about some things to look for that are signs that your garlic may be too far along maybe growing too fast too early those are some things that can be caused for some concern but a few inches off the ground is very normal it's very very normal and it's somewhat expected in fact so um the first thing I want to talk about is the fact that I'm not worried and I'm not going to be doing anything different for what uh you know for my case but we're also going to go into some cases where there may be some cause for concern and what you can do if your garlic is kind of in that in that red territory right right now we're we're not even in caution territory we're like green for go this is all good this is fine this is normal but if your garlic is kind of creeping towards that red stop caution mode I got some stuff for you so the first reason why I'm not concerned is like I said I chose varieties that are going to do very well in our area so because of that I know that I'm going to have varieties that are very cold tolerant they're going to handle the weather that Michigan is throwing at us currently and despite the fact that they're up and growing they're not too uh they're not too far along and they're cold tolerant so that's that's one thing second thing is the amount of growth that they have now garlic is a bulb and Bulbs do sprout right that's their energy store for The Following season and garlic will start to grow depending on how early you plant it if the weather is warm and the soil is damp and it's nice and fertile you're going to see some growth that's to be expected now how much growth is what kind of dictates the you're good to go you're fine no worries into kind of that caution maybe start taking some steps to protect it territory about 3 to 5 in is all you really want on your garlic if it's taller than 5 in you're starting to creep up into that caution territory where some steps might need to be taken but that 3 to 5 in territory you're totally fine and that's because that green growth even if it dies back a little bit like we have some that have some yellow tips on them that's from the cold that will tend to die back and they they won't really phase the garlic at all if it gets much taller than that that's where we're going to take some steps to really kind of protect the garlic help conserve that energy because if it grows too much and then it happens to die back that's all energy l Frost that could affect a harvest later on the other thing that Frost fabric helps to do is not just protect the top of the plants but also helps protect the soil it's going to help to trap heat in the soil so that it helps radiate out through the night and so I'm not going to apply uh Frost covering over my beds all the time I'm only going to do it during the night and then during the day I'm just going to let the sun and whatever shine on my plants if I happen to get snow that's even better I actually like snow because snow can help to insulate the soil and protect them it's going to help them keep them uh at more of a a climate controlled 25 to 32° your garlic is not going to do a ton of growing in that 25 to 32 Dee range your garlic will start to grow at about 35 to 40° and so at that point that's where your garlic actually continues to grow anything below that 35° threshold though it's going to be green but it's not going to do a ton of growing it's going to basically stay just like it is right now so if it hasn't done a ton of growing there's no need to be concerned if it is growing it's kind of getting into that caution territory taller than 5 in throw some uh from some Frost cover over top just during the night if it if it gets snow pull that Frost cover off let that snow settle on the soil it's going to be a wonderful insulator because snow has a ton of air and air is a great insulator um snow is often seen as cold right but it's not as cold as the air temperature might be it's going to trap that heat near the roots that's going to protect it and then the final thing you can do aside from frost covering is you can actually reapply a mulch we've actually taken off The Mulch off these beds we had some uh some pine mulch that we had on here and we actually applied a layer of fresh compost over top where that mulch was so that we can actually kind of get into spring but if it gets really really cold we can always throw a mulch back over top of this it's not saying you can't so here we actually have a garlic plant that got a little too tall and got some Frost damage and you can see this this is what happens you know the tips just die back they turn brown and they they wither away the new growth is is nice and green and happy so I'm not terribly concerned but what you want to look for this is healthy this is very normal right this got a little yellow tip to it but for as warm as it's been and as sporadic as the temperatures have been this is this is very acceptable this garlic is is going to come out of dormy it's going to grow very well and it's going to thrive for us I have no doubts in that this garlic here definitely had some Frost damage and you know obviously I wish I could have prevented that but G gardening is just about dealing with the situations as they arise because I don't have a crystal ball I don't know what the weather is going to be and so uh this garlic probably sprouted in late fall probably grew like this over winter and so this was exposed to a far far more harsh weather conditions than you know than some of these other ones were and as you can see much taller a lot more access to that cold harsh cutting wind and had some dieback and so lot of gardeners would fear that this is maybe going to die this even if this dies all the way back I'm still entrusting that there's enough energy in that garlic clove down below the soil to push some new growth so even if they lose all these leaves up top there's generally enough energy to kind of push some more new growth and still kind of Salvage your season all right the final thing you can do is if your garlic is starting to grow into that caution territory and you are worried about it what you can do is you can actually embrace the growth now I know you're probably thinking hold on Luke press the brakes pause what's going on why would you want to embrace the growth if we're talking about you know still cold weather in the future the reason why we're embracing the growth is because well you can't reverse growth you can't go backwards it's not like we're in the 90s and you can just rewind the tape you got to just kind of embrace it and how can you do that well if it's already very far Advanced you have some cold weather in the future but you're in early March like we're in right now what you can do is you can actually put some plastic over top of your beds you can actually use the sun to warm the soil even more expedite that growth and get it growing and what that's going to do is going to help your garlic to actually start generating that energy because again the bulb is the source of the energy if that growth happens to die that bulb has to have enough energy to regrow so what can you do well you can create more energy by using the sun to create more energy for you that way you're not relying as much on the bulb and more on the foliage now obviously this is a pretty intensive step you really have to commit to it and so you want to take either PVC or you want to take like cattle panel uh um the big cattle panel Hoops strap those over top of your beds and put a nice thick plastic don't go cheap use something like a six mil you can go that's the thickness of the plastic a six mil drop cloth or even greenhouse plastic is going to be great you can get it very inexpensively I've even used literally six mil drop claws at my local hardware store you can get them really inexpensively strap them over top of your beds and just commit to the growth you're going to want to have a lot of growth in order to generate that energy so you're not relying on the bulbs themselves and you don't want to do this in like January you'd only really do this in about March because at that point that's where you know if if it was like early February even mid-February I probably would just use Frost covering you know the frost fabric to protect my plants I wouldn't embrace the growth at that point right but if if it's early if it's uh early March and they're already rocking and rolling embrace the growth it's only going to cost you you know between 20 and 30 bucks to cover your beds with plastic get them up and growing but that's just another option for you you could also literally just say well I'll just let's see where the cards fall right and we could just do nothing as well that's also like I said that's my current option that's what I'm going to do because they haven't grown into that caution territory but even in that caution territory if it's late enough in the season and you think it's not going to get quite that cold in like the you know low 20s you could just leave it too lots of options but regardless I hope this video has kind of helped to put your mind at ease kind of see the fact that I do have growth here you probably have similar growth there's no cause for concern and even if there is cause for concern there's a couple things that you can do to still Salvage your Harvest so I hope you guys enjoyed I hope you all learned something new if you did make sure to hit the like button subscribe if you haven't already and make sure that you share this video with some friends that have said their garlic is sprouting and they're worried as well I'm sure they'll enjoy this episode so I hope you guys enjoyed and as always this is Luke from the Mi Gardner Channel reminding you to grow bigger take care bye

Channel: MIgardener

Views: 26,392

Keywords: vegetable gardening, organic gardening, garden, gardening, growing food, vegetables, vegetable garden, tomatoes, how to grow, simple, sustainable, urban gardening, raised bed, permaculture

Id: vj9s_5Hxkvk

Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2024