Hi
Is anyone growing garlic from true seeds and have some extra seeds to sell?
I’m having terrible luck growing garlic in my mediterranean climate so must find new types or develop my own😅
2 Likes
We’re hoping to have garlic true seeds as one of the Going to Seed packets this year!
7 Likes
Slightly off-topic: a couple years ago I realized that I was quickly eating all my grown garlic and that I needed a cheaper way to buy seed to not only get me through the year but provide enough cloves for the next season. So, I collected many hundreds of bulbils and sowed a dense bed which gave me hundreds (the right amount) of small garlic for free, most of which were best pre-skinned and stored in the refrigerator with oil but I also had enough to sow all throughout the garden in the fall. Each year they get bigger and I think this year they will be more of a legitimate size. It’s easy just to buy seed garlic but I take a special pride out of being so cheap that I have to wait several years for a good crop.
Didn’t know then about the true garlic seed and will try and collect some myself as well (forgot and harvested most of the scapes already).
1 Like
Saving money is excellent. Having your own source of propagation material and not being reliant on someone external for it is even better!
1 Like
oh wow, I didn’t realize that anyone had reliable enough true garlic seeds to provide any. That’ll be awesome.
I really like the idea of having a set of garlic where the whole purpose is to harvest the bulbils to plant for small garlic. You can thickly plant those and eat them fresh as if each plant was a clove, and the ones that make it through the year just move to the next phase
1 Like
That was my reaction when I found out! Shortly followed by “droooooool.” 
That is awesome!
I just pulled my non-perennial patch of garlic (I believe most of it is Music?) and the few scapes I let go to “seed” (bulbils, actually), and I’m letting the flower/bulbil heads I scavenged from a ditch last weekend dry out/cure at the moment. It’s looking like I’m going to have a few hundred garlic bulbils to spread around the garden and toss in my perennial patch here soon. It’d be so nice to get some diversity from true seed in there, too.
That sounds fantastic!
I was hoping my hardneck garlics would give me seeds this year, but alas, not even bulbils. Not even scapes! Oh, well. They were still delicious.
I’ve tried twice to get seeds from my garlic, picking off the bulbils and hand-pollinating flowers and multiple plants, but not had luck. I understand that it gets easier with successive generations, so would love to get my hands on some seed. Excited by the possibility here, but worried that demand will outstrip supply.
My hardneck garlick just started to flower and I have been removing the bulbils to give the flowers space.
We’ll see how successful the flowers will be. But my second question is, any chance that these (I assume immature) bulbils would grow? Has anyone tried that? And when do you think would be the best time to plant them? I brought them inside to dry a bit in the meantime.
1 Like
Totally want some of that! Drooling over the thought of it, hahaha!
A few of mine aslo haven’t set any scapes, thes rest did. It’s been super dry first and now very wet I wonder if that odd climate has something to do with it? Also ot seems the ones that didn’t set a scape are larger plants than the scape ones. Did you pull yours up? I am not sure if i should just let the non flowering ones go longer until maybe they flower? As I am used to picking garlic after it scapes…(is that a word?)
I got true garlic seeds from Garlicana a few years back. They’re still selling seeds and are super knowledgeable. You can try reaching out to them to see if they have any to offer right now. The varieties/strains also have awesome names and ‘stories’.
1 Like
I also got my true seed from there, but I think they’re not selling any this year.
I have plucked bulbils and let them fall where I’m working in the field, and I have stored them dried all winter and then planted them. Both have grown, but I wasn’t doing either one carefully enough to have any idea of germination rate other than that it’s >0.
4 Likes
Garlicana’s off-grid. You have to contact them to find out what’s in stock (the website isn’t up to date) and then mail in payment and order. Last time I emailed they tried to talk me out of buying true garlic seed from them.
I think they also tried to talk me out of buying it too. Maybe it’s their litmus test? 
Sure, “scapes” works as a verb! 
English verbs nouns all the time, and nouns verbs. It’s one of the fun features of our language.
Or, as my husband once said, “Verbing weirds language!” 
As for Garlicana having a litmus test to see if people are really serious about buying true seeds from them . . . (chuckles). That’s legitimately possible! They may want to make sure anyone who gets it understands all the risks as well as rewards, and is really serious about wanting exactly what they get.
1 Like
Thanks for that info! I will seed these in trays in fall, i think and I know I definitely dropped some too!
Bulbils may carry less of a virus load than cloves, thus leaning towards being more productive, or setting seed easier.
2 Likes