Garlic Bulbils
What is Bulbils:
When garlic is left to mature on the plant, they form bulbils that look just like miniature garlic cloves. These are not true seeds, but they can be planted as such. Although they take two to three seasons to develop heads, I find they’re a more reliable way to propagate garlic than starting with individual cloves. For one, [because they’re airborne] they don’t harbor soil-borne diseases. And two, they produce a truer strain of the parent plant— and isn’t perpetuating a species an important reason to save seeds?
How to grow Bulbils:
Prepare soil bed like any other seed – well worked, composted, raised beds.
We recommend to plant bulbils in the Spring – not in the Fall which is opposite then the garlic clove. Plant as early as you can as soon as you are able to work the soil.
In the raised bed, dig shallow 1” deep seed rows about 6 inches apart.
Sprinkle or carefully place the bulbils in the shallow dug rows. Cover with dirt and water well.
Water and weed like any other vegetable. Small bulbils will not compete well with weeds, so keep the bed weeded at all times.. The first year, the bulbils will grow like small onions – some still very small, some perhaps 3/4” across.
Harvest when you harvest your other garlic. Cure like other garlic, and replant each “round” that Fall, just as you do with your garlic cloves. Spacing the second year can be slightly closer than usual garlic cloves.
By the second year, your bulbils will have already developed a bulb, usually smaller than a garlic bulb grown from a clove.
Harvest with the second year bulbils with the garlic grown from cloves, and treat exactly like garlic grown from cloves. Replant in Fall, and the third year your garlic will be ready, and yield a normal sized bulb.
