Gardening Questions Cooking Garlic...

I wouldn't recommend planting the shop bought garlic as it is not the seed garlic and will taste bitter. Garlic needs to be planted in January or October and will thrive on the cold spell to get it going. I get my garlic bulbs or sets from the Isle of Wight Garlic Farm by mail order (when I move there in July, I'll be able to go and get it myself!!! yummmmm). Most of the Britsh Isles Garlic is produced on the IOW. It will flower and the flowers look like Alliums as the garlic is part of the Allium (onion) family, however when the green leaves start to brown off that is when the bulbs are ready to lift and dry on top of the soil like an onion. If you are growing it for the bulbs to eat use the seed garlic, if you just want the flowers than use the shop bought stuff, I've never planted it but it might work. Have a look on google images for garlic flowers, but here is the link to the Isle of Wight Garlic Farm

www.thegarlicfarm.co.uk

Thanx Andrearichter
the informations been a great help Think il just grow the garlic in fridge 4 flowers &get the seeds 4 oct :) MMmmmm cant wait

Last year I let garlic go to seed and you will get a nice round purple flower and they make good dry flowers for decorations

Wow a Round Purple Flower , Is it also true if its planted near Roses it stops Green fly?

We did grow garlic from a supermarket one year, Jacque - split of the individual cloves and planted them individually and they grew - we got garlic to eat from them too, although the cloves were rather small. We grew some of them with roses because we'd heard the same thing about roses and they didn't stop the aphids - though who knows, maybe they weren't as bad as they might otherwise have been. I'm sure you'll get great flowers though.

If you want the big purple pom-pom flowers then plant Elephant Garlic for the best results.
I found this on Google Images

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wreaths-unlimited.com/images/42017.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.wreaths-unlimited.com/42017.html&h=400&w=400&sz=43&hl=en&start=25&um=1&tbnid=gv-dX8CVdxWpIM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgarlic%2Bflower%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

Long link but this wreath would be a great alternative to the usual Christmas decorations. The large purple ball like flowers are the Elephant Garlic and they are great to dry as Janette says.

Hi Jacque. Have a look at this site

www.thegarlicfarm.co.uk

It will tell you everything you need to know about garlic. I have been to the garlic festival many times when I used to live on the IOW and they do almost anything with it. Garlic beer and garlic ice cream, not for the feint hearted though and definitely an aquired taste. The seed garlic won't be available yet as it is out of season for planting, you will have to wait until October. They do sell Elephant Garlic bulbs, check out the site, it is fantastic