I am no expert, but could it be that you have Botrytis Neck Rot? I have not experienced what you are describing at the junction of the scape (my experience is more at the base where it contacts the soil). What do the bulbs look like? Here is a good page from Rasa Creek Farm on garlic diseases & pests.

On the other hand, a lot of people prefer to pull rather than cut their scapes. If you haven’t cut them all already, perhaps you could try pulling a few and see if they normally give way fairly easily?

Could it be that an insect got in there, chewed a bit, and the stem softened near the wound? I have also experienced some stem damage from extreme winds.

Sorry I can’t be of more help. Hope it is nothing serious! Best of luck to you on your crop!

Hmmm. For me, 6 would be quite a few. I might wait just a bit longer. You can dig out around the bulb a bit and see how it’s doing. Or maybe harvest one and then decide. They can grow quite a bit during the last few weeks, but they will store a lot longer if all the cloves are still snug around the stem. Better to be a little on the small side than to have them opening up. Good luck, Tami!

Seriosly? I have no idea. I am no expert. I am like you – searching the Internet and other sources, trying to find answers to the world’s most pressing problems, and most immediately, those in my own backyard. Do ALL of the varieties have spots? If so, it must not be the variety or source, but must either be something with the soil or a viral/fungal/pest issue. If it were me, I would get an inexpensive soil test kit and see what it says. “Firt time planting in this field” leads me to think perhaps you didn’t have time to build the soil before planting. In the meantime, I would attempt a “holistic medicine” approach and strengthen all the plants to be more resistant to whatever is out there. Foliar sprays with compost tea and liquid kelp or fish fertilizer can be most helpful. Put on some mulch to protect the soil and even out fluctuations that can be plant stressors. Also, get a start now on growing green manures and preparing a spot for next year’s crop. Fall comes around sooner than we expect! Good luck!

Hi Les – We have the problem of a very wet, coastal climate, too – only I think you get quite a bit more cold than we do. This last winter, we got more snow than we’ve gotten in nearly 20 years and it hung in there a long time. I was really grateful my garlic pulled through. I never used to mulch in the winter because for us, it holds in the cold and moisture too much. Too much wet is harder on garlic than a lot of cold. The best thing you can do is pull back the mulch, pull any weeds, and let things air out. Garlic is very hardy — my guess is that it will perk up. Manure can be tricky in my experience, and you only want to add it in spring. I lost almost an entire crop one year by adding too much. It warmed the soil, added a lot of nutrients, and made perfect conditions for nematodes and fungal issues. If after waiting a week or so, you decide they still need a little boost, give them a light dose – preferably before the end of May, as too much nitrogen late in the season will interfere with bulb development. May/June is the time of year they start converting from foliar to bulb production, but it sounds like yours got a bit of a late start, so you perhaps still have time? My approach these days is to minimize added fertilizers on the actual crop. Usually, I just get too busy to deal with it – but some years I have given them a little blood meal or compost in early spring and kelp foliar spray or fish fertilizer in the summer. Instead, I try to build the soil now for where I will plant in the coming fall and hopefully that provides them with everything they need. Sometimes the most neglected bulbs are the most flavorful and the better keepers. People often make it too complicated. My guess is they (your bulbs, not the people, but probably them, too!) will be helped immensely by a little fresh air & sunshine. Add the mulch back on to keep things moderate when it starts getting hot and your bulbs will thank you. Thanks for stopping in, Les – and hope you get a great crop. It’s always fun hearing about how crops are growing in other parts of the country (and planet!), even though I don’t always have the answers!

I have a separate question. I’m growing in a raised bed. I covered the cloves in the fall with plenty of straw. I’m in Mid-Coast Maine where the winter was very wet. When I took off the straw the seeds sprouted but the stalks look pale and not happy. Is there anything I can or should do, or just wait and see if they come back and send up healthy stalks now that the soil is warmer and there is some sunshine. I was going to fertilize today with composted manure but thought perhaps I should ask about this issue first.

Thank you for the GREAT information about garlic!
les

Hi Ling – I wonder if the clove gets damaged in some way early in its life, if it might also cause the bulb to send up multiple shoots like that? Kind of like nipping the tips of a plant will make it branch out? Just an idea. You don’t say where you are or when you planted, but garlic needs to go through a vernalization or cold period to form individual cloves. So if you got lots of “rounds” or bulbs without cloves, perhaps it didn’t get that cold spell? (I always plant in October here in WA State.) I was just reading a book, “Teaming with Fungi” by Jeff Lowenfels – and it has led me to believe that mycorrhaizal fungi may be the key to growing large, strong, disease-resistant plants and pretty much all of our problems. It’s all about the soil. Thanks for stopping in! Glad you liked the post.
~blythe

Hi Michelle. As noted above, weather fluctuations in early spring (extreme cold snaps? Ohio can really get those!) can cause multiple stems to form, as can certain diseases. But my guess is that you planted cloves that looked like one clove at the time but were actually more. At planting time, it can be hard to see where cloves divide. If you remove the wrappers, you might notice that extra large cloves can be 2 in 1 (or even more). It’s like the bulb wasn’t quite finished making all the cloves. Splitting them apart can sometimes break them, making both parts useless; but planting them whole can result in a multi-stemmed plant. Careful selection can minimize the number of “doubles” you get; some varieties (especially rocamboles) are more prone to doubles than others.

So the question is, now what to do? 1/3 of your crop is quite a few! If you want to transplant them, now is the time to do it. If you can gently shake apart the tangled roots and separate the two plants, and if you have the room, you could experiment with that. Although transplant shock is a setback, there is time for them to catch up. However, if you find that the cloves are still bound together, trying to separate them won’t help. Just tuck it back in the ground and give it your blessings. Chalk it up to experience & this fall, try to minimize the number of cloves you plant that might be more than one.

Are you growing them with the intention of selling some? That might factor into your decision. Doubles aren’t a bad thing for your own use, but for market sales, people like large round bulbs, not smaller bulbs that are flattened on one side because they were growing next to a partner. They all taste the same, though.

If a garlic bulb were left to its own devices, it would just grow multiple shoots from the bulb, and the resulting little bulbs would then grow multiple shoots, until there would be a clump of tender chive-like stems – also very good eating! Sometimes I do this, especially if I am growing them as a pest deterrent around my roses.

Hope this helps! If you find out something different, please let me know! (Oh – and now is a perfect time to give them a little nitrogen boost. Extra strong leafy greens now mean larger bulbs later.) Good luck on your crop!

Hi Sarjil – Not sure where you are located, but garlic needs a period of cold (“vernalization”) before it will form individual cloves. Normally, I plant cloves outside in raised beds in October and harvest in summer (9 months of growth). I have a friend who successfully grows his in multiple pots on his deck, but mine always do better when the roots are free to stretch out for water and nutrients. Your little bulb and the stalk might still be good eating, though. Some chefs prefer the “rounds” because it means less peeling. Or maybe you could replant it?
P.S. The only way I have grown it indoors is by planting the little seedlets that grow at the top of the scape “flower.” I planted them densely, they came up looking like grass, and then I snipped them off like chives.

Hi Robert. I wish I were more of an expert in this to give you a definitive answer. Your question made me rethink what I thought I knew and do more research. I am sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you; perhaps you have already taken action.

Here is a photo by Melodie Putnam from the Oregon State University pdf file on Fusarium:

From what I can tell, Fusarium is very common and is just about everywhere – but just because it is there does NOT necessarily mean your garlic will become diseased. Infection can occur at any time while growing, curing, or in storage, but the fungus usually attacks the weak, i.e., cloves and bulbs that have been damaged in some way. It proliferates when temperatures are warm (68-86 degrees F or 20-30 C) and humidity is high.

It is NOT as bad as White Rot. Nowhere did I see that you need to dig up your soil and take it to a hazardous waste site. However, the University of California ag department does say it can live indefinitely in the soil.

You have a couple of options, since yours is already planted: Dig it up and limit your losses – or – let it grow. You don’t say whether it’s a dozen cloves or 100 dozen – or where you are located – but I would ask, How bad is it, really? Are you SURE it’s Fusarium? Could it possibly be nematodes? Is it in an out-of-the-way place? What do you intend to grow there next?

Because – I will stick my neck out here – if Fusarium is basically everywhere – along with all kinds of other fungi, molds, critters, viruses – if your conditions aren’t right for it to grow, it might not be a problem.

On the flip side, prevention is often the key, and planting cloves you know are diseased doesn’t make sense. If it’s not too much trouble to dig them up, you might be doing yourself a huge favor to be on the conservative side. It needn’t be a total loss. Most people aren’t going to tell you to eat diseased bulbs, but I have to say, I have been known to cut out the bad spots and have survived to tell about it.

According to the ONvegetables website (see link below), there is no evidence that the disease transfers from bulb to bulb during storage.

Standard prevention rules apply:

Other things you might do:

Helpful resources I consulted:

Hope this is helpful and good luck to you!

Excellent information in your message above. I already knew much of this, some
I didn’t know. I recently received a garlic order ( Romanian Red) and after soaking the cloves overnight in baking soda, to help remove the skins, I discovered that many of them were infected with fusarium. I planted the infected cloves in a different area so I could dig them up and throw them away.
The garlic dealer is replacing the whole order. I hope I haven’t ruined my soil. I just planted them yesterday. Should I dig the infected cloves up right away and
discard them? Thanks, Robert

I found this photo on the Laidback Gardener blog – and it looks like what you are describing: . The author, Larry Hodgson, states that it is a response to stress and that you can plant the little mini-bulb like you can hardneck bulbils – which confirms my experience, too. I would let them continue and maybe even try planting the little bubils in the fall. If a stressor caused the plant to form the bulbil, it stands to reason it could also affect the bulb, right? Something to think about and try to figure out! Sorry I don’t have better answers, but everyone’s situation is different. (BTW – I really like Larry Hodgson’s blog. He lives in Quebec [closer to your climate] and talks about a wide variety of garden topics.)

I never figured out why this occurred on some of my garlic plants and not others. Did you check to see how the bulb is doing? (sometimes I pull away the soil a bit to check and then cover it back up) Mine turned out fine, despite the abnormality, as I remember – although it’s been a couple of years. It is still too early to harvest, but you might be able to tell how it is doing compared with others. Did you identify any stressors that the plant might be reacting to? Maybe it’s just one of nature’s variations? If the plant seems to be otherwise ok, I would leave it. If it is showing signs of disease, best to dig it out before it infects others. Sorry I can’t be of more help!

I had those bubils also around 6 inches from the soil line. What is this from?