QUESTION TIME
GOT A FRUIT OR VEG PROBLEM? ASK KG FOR HELP
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POOR POTTED GARLIC CROP
Every year I grow garlic in large rectangular pots in my garden, planting the bulbs in early November. However, for the past few years my crop of cloves has become smaller and smaller until last autumn when the bulbs I lifted were no bigger than when first planted and the cloves (on those bulbs which had split) were tiny and virtually useless. Any ideas to improve things?
Mrs Susan Daywan, Buckinghamshire
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STEVE SAYS: There could be several factors that are limiting the size of your container-grown garlic.
The non-splitting of bulbs tends to occur if the winter weather is mild, so it is possible that milder, wetter winters will lead to more regular occurrences of whole bulbs, rather than ones split into cloves. Of course, whole bulbs are perfectly edible if not exactly what we want.