A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Elephant Garlic

Will my elephant garlic be ok if I keep cutting off the leaves?

Its a long story.

This spring I planted some just for fun so I only have 6 plants. I read someplace that the leaves were edible so I cut off a little piece and tried it. It was pretty good and I cut more to put in some potato soup. My 3 year old grandson ate most of it raw before I could get it into the soup.

Then I decided to make some dip with the leaves and I cut more off. It was AWESOME. I took some to a potluck and now everyone I know and even people I don't know very well are bugging me to make them some of this dip.

Its hard for me to say no, and now my poor little plants are "bald" except for one center leaf. I am going to have to buy more to plant this fall just so I can have some for myself.

My elephant garlic is still growing really well but I wonder if it will be ok if I keep cutting off the leaves.

Do you think it will be alright?

Only guessing here but i imagine it will continue to grow leaves until the season changes, then the bulb should begin to swell. It's possible that having too little leaves to take the suns energy may result in small or unformed bulbs.

I kind of expected them to be small anyway because I planted them this spring.

What I didn't expect was how popular the leaves turned out to be with other people once I made that stupid dip. My "babies" look so naked. I just hope I haven't gone too far and harmed them.

I have very limited space but I'm thinking if I can plant 18-24 cloves this fall I might end up with enough so that I can have some too. lol