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Garlic

November 7, 2012

We love garlic.  And when I say we love garlic I mean, we really love garlic.  We add to it to most things, whether fresh and chopped or dried and ground.  Tool Lady especially loves it roasted and smeared on crusty bread, I just love it with my chile.

For the past couple of years we have simply taken some garlic purchased from the Farmer’s Market, broken it up and stuck it in the ground.  Our harvests have been OK, but not great and we had no idea what varieties we were growing.  While cheap and a little fun, I decided that this year we should actually order a couple of varieties of garlic seed and see which does best and which we absolutely adore.

So, this year, I ordered Lorz Italian, Chesnok Red & Erik’s German White from Seeds Savers Exchange in the hopes of finding the one (or two) that do really well and taste delicious.  Here’s the info that came with each variety…

Lorz Italian – 29 cloves from 2 bulbs – Northwest heirloom brought to Washington State’s Columbia Basin from Italy by the Lorz family before 1900.  Medium warm with a zesty flavor that is not harsh and lingers on the tongue.  Great for roasting.  Softneck, 12-18 cloves per bulb.

Chesnok Red (AKA Shvelisi)- 27 cloves from two bulbs – Originates from the village of Shvelisi, Republic of Georgia.  Beautiful purple striped paper with red cloves, easy to peel.  Good lingering taste, retains flavor well when cooked.  Rated as one of the very best for baking and roasting.  Hardneck, 8-10 cloves per bulb.

Erik’s German White – 12 (very large) cloves from two bulbs – A local favorite produced for over 10 years by our neighbor Erik Sessions.  Hardy plants with strong roots that overwinter without heaving out of the ground.  Bulbs have white wrappers with red-purple skinned cloves, easy to peel.  Rich and slightly spicy garlic flavor.  Hardneck, 4-6 large cloves.

Now, there are actually a few garlic heads growing in the garden right now that were planted last fall and didn’t bother to come up until early August.  So, instead of pulling them now, I’ve decided to go ahead and leave them.  I’m not sure if they’ll survive the winter, but I figure it’s worth a shot.  Since this years garlic didn’t last very long (I didn’t plant enough + the drought kept it very small, so it went away very quickly + it wasn’t going to keep very long…It was incredibly tasty, though) the stuff leftover in the ground is all we have in the way of local, organic goodness.  We’ll see how it fairs through the winter.

I’d love to hear from you now!  What kind of garlic do you plant and why?  I’d love to hear about all the varieties and how they do in your climate!


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8 Comments on “Garlic”

  1. We always have plans to do garlic, but haven’t gotten there yet. Best of luck with these! Please feel free to swing by and link up with my Tuesday Greens linky for green living and gardening posts. http://www.craftygardenmama.com Have a great week!

    1. Hi Becky! Welcome! I’m glad you found me! I will check out your space and your link up! Hope you’re having a wonderful weekend!

    1. Hi Lisa! So glad you found me! I have enjoyed poking around your space and look forward to participating in your blog fest 🙂

  5. I have yet to find the perfect garlic for mhy microclimate. I am trialling 5 varieties this year but unfortunately Mr 3 pulled out all the labels so I don’t know which is which. I guess I will just save the best variety/ies for next years seed.

    1. Oh man…mixed up (or lost) labels are never fun! Well, hopefully they’ll be recognizable when you pull them! If not, saving your favorite(s) works, too 🙂

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