How not to grow garlic!

The garlic bulbs I've harvested this summer were planted last autumn, when I still lived in Bristol. Because I had no ground to grow anything in at the time, I tried growing garlic in compost in wooden wine boxes outside our flat. The photograph shows the result of my efforts with a standard-sized bulb alongside for comparison.

The garlic bulbs produced are disappointingly small and only some of them have divided up into cloves within the bulb. This year I will be doing things differently, growing garlic in the ground on my allotment, but I think it's worth looking at where I went wrong last year and how a better crop of garlic might be produced from container growing.

Firstly, the garlic cloves I planted were from shop-bought garlic intended for cooking, not growing. I have had success in the past growing garlic I bought from a market stall, but I grew it in the ground not in a container. This year I'm planning to buy some bulbs sold specifically for growing on, although hopefully I will be able to use some of the cloves I grow for planting in future years.

Secondly, I am aware that I tried to grow too many cloves for a small space. Perhaps the bulbs would have developed properly if I had planted fewer of them and they had more room to grow. The container was certainly deep enough for growing garlic, but by planting too many cloves there may not have been enough nutrients in the compost to sustain their growth. (I recognise this tendency in myself to plant and sow too densely with other crops too - I find it difficult to thin out sowings and often underestimate planting distances when setting out plugs. Hopefully, recognising it will help me to correct it!)

Also, I planted some winter salad crops (like winter purslane and rocket) between the rows of garlic, so although there was no weed competition maybe there was still too much competition from my other crops, especially as it was all in a container!

It's possible that not all of the bulbs divided into cloves because the weather wasn't cold enough through the winter here. I've read that garlic is best planted in the autumn so that the cold winter temperatures stimulate the bulb to divide. Last winter was very mild in this area so despite my autumn planting it seems the garlic did not get that stimulation.

So lessons learnt for planting garlic this year - buy suitable garlic, get the spacings right and don't try to plant other crops too close. I can't do much about the winter weather except hope it's cold enough!