This ONE Tip Will DOUBLE The Size of Your Garlic Heads!

Over the years I have heard many rumours discussing the impact that the size of a seed or, in instance, garlic clove, can have on the size of the plant. But, I could not find any evidence or research to fully support these rumours. So, I took matters into my own hands! In October 2021, I planted one row (15 cloves) of the smallest cloves of garlic that I could find. Directly beside it I planted a second row of the BIGGEST garlic cloves I could find. Outside of that, every variable remained the exact same. So 9 months later, we're now able to see just how big of an impact the size of a Garlic Clove has on how well it grows. And as you'll see in the video, the results even surprised me!

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[RickMcFarlane-lm]

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.

[nicolasbertin]

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.

[JefeBoss]

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.

[jonwalker]

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

[shawnmoriere]

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

[georgekusz]

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. :-)

[bthyme]

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.

[apotatosapling]

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.

[davegreig]

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.

[enatp]

Love the seriously geeky research gardener approach. ❤

[gabec]

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

[smitajky]

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.

[katiesvegpatch]

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!

[vedamichele]

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

[jwfans]

Wow I was wondering why my garlic head are so tiny and the reason is I planted small garlic cloves and I did that cuz I didn't really want to give my biggest, thanks alot this accually saved me from giving up, I plant about 14 small cloves before

[abjealva]

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.

[plumbummanx]

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.

[Growinginontario]

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.

[richardhoner]

lol you answered my exact question! I have grown garlic for decades but I never paid much attention to the size of the cloves I planted. Guess I’ll be planting my biggest cloves from now on.

[heron]

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.