What's up with my garlic lately?

[pinkmomagain]

For the past six months or so I feel like I've been striking out with garlic. I buy a big bulb at the grocery store and either:

1) I get to using it and it's black moldy stuff along the paper skin and/or brown decay on the actual cloves

and/or

2) within a week's time it is sprouting green shoots.

I'm storing it the same way I always have...in a dark/dry cabinet in my kitchen. I'm wondering if I should be storing it a different way? I don't think it belongs in the fridge?

I'm almost tempted to get jarred garlic but I would obviously much rather have fresh.

Any ideas?

[DebbieJ]

Make sure you're buying garlic bulbs that are tight and white.

[Pepper]

Garlic always seems to go bad on me quickly, too - that and onions. I suspect that it either wasn't cured properly, stored correctly, or some combination of the two. I finally gave up and grew my own garlic last year...just now harvesting the bulbs and am wishing that i'd planted more garlic!

[pinkmomagain]

Thanks. I do try to look for the closed white ones with a nice thick layer of papery skin on them. I never had a problem in the past, but it's been a recent thing. I wonder if my local stores are getting them from growers/distributors who are not very good at storage.

Never thought to grow my own, but that's a GREAT idea. How does that work? Do you start from seed or plant or bulb?????? Tell me more!

[Pepper]

You start from bulbs. I ordered online from Territorial Seeds (http://www.territorialseed.com/) but there are lots of reliable suppliers. I did a little bit of research before planting, but you can get the book "Growing Great Garlic" for more information. Or check out this post from a food/gardening blogger that I love:
http://fastgrowtheweeds.com/2010/06/07/on-garlic-2/

Since this was my first year tyring out garlic, I planted 5 different varieties: both hard and softneck (hardnecks make bigger cloves/bulbs, but they don't store as long); some early, mid, and late maturing (I dug up the first bulbs a month ago, and have just a few left in the garden now); and some because htey are supposed to be good for long storage (6-9 months). my garden is pretty small but I planted into 3 different beds, just to see if it made a difference. Even with buying the smallest quantites,I had many more cloves than room to plant so I used up the leftovers in cooking. next time, though, I will plant the small cloves too and use them as green garlic in the spring as El suggests in her post.

The only problems I see with growing your own is (1) you have to have room in the garden when it's time to plant. A month or so before the ground freezes is the target time, so here in easter MA I have to have space around early October (you harvest the garlic the following spring/summer). My tomatoes are still going then and I can't bring myself to uproot them! Last year I was growing a pole variety of beans for drying, so I interpanted the garlic aroundhte vines; when the vines died back I cut them at ground level and harvested the beans. I suppose a way aorund this problem is to have a dedicated garlic bed, which I just may do because i am so inlove with homegrown garlic!

The other problem (2) is that some of the varieties were really hard to break apart into cloves. Okay, that's really not a problem per se, but my hands got really sore when I was tyring to get those suckers apart without disturbing the cloves. Thinking ahead to cooking with them, I may not plant those varieties again.

Sorry that got so long - if you're still reading, I hope it's helpful :-)

[zoestargrove]

Pepper, since you're in Massachusetts you might be interested in going to the garlic festival in the fall. I haven't been myself, but will be going this year for sure after hearing 2 separate recomendations recently.

http://www.garlicandarts.org/

[marie]

i've been having a hard time with garlic, too. I mentioned it to my mom and she said she has also been getting a lot of moldy or rotting garlic lately.

I check the garlic pretty thoroughly before i buy it, i've tried organic, regular, etc. and still have trouble. . .

i have grown it in the past (when living in MA!) and it was pretty easy to grow - but the only problem is that I go through a TON of garlic and it would take a heck of a lot of garden space to plant as much as we eat.