Growing Garlic and varieties

[Jeannine]

Hi, I have started this here as I was puzzled on another post re garlic and didn't want to interfere with it.

I rarely hear anyone mention garlic by variety, they do with tomatoes  and chilies but not garlic and that puzzles me.

I have seen  Germidour and Extra Early Wt mentioned , they both  are from the softneck varietal group, sub varieties Silverskins .Thy don't put up scapes unless very overstressed, they store well, they are the ones usually seen in the supermarkets as they can be mechanically sown, they have multiple small cloves and they braid well. They are also the latest varietal group to mature.

So I am curious, what varieties of garlic do you grow and why.

I grow several kinds the same as I do tomatoes as each has a different flavor, heat, size of clove, and ease of growth etc

Is perhaps growing garlic not such an interest in the UK..as there are over 600 varieties each with it's own flavor and heat just like chillies adna lot of those are grown in the Uk I fine this puzzling

[Jeannine]

[Tee Gee]

I don't bother too much about this as I basically go for either soft or hard neck varieties from a keeping point of view.

I also grow a few elephant garlic ( a very few!)

Add to that I always save the best of my cloves to give me the following years crop, so it is quite possible what I end up with is not strictly the varieties I started off with.

Having said that, as this is a vegetative method of propagation this should mean the varieties are the same as the originals.....I don't know??

The main reason I do not bother about names is because of my aging memory and ' lost label syndrome'

I just think of them as either purple or white hard neck and purple or white soft neck it is much easier.

When it comes to taste the only thing I seem to notice is that either I have been a bit heavy handed with the amount I have added to the dish I am cooking or not heavy handed enough, but then again that might be partly an aging thing as well.

[rollingrock]

Jeannine my theory is most UK growers have never tasted really good garlic or when have garlic it is the powered stuff sprinkled on restaurant  Spag Bol  in such amount you can't taste anything else.
I grow about 7 type garlic but am am not a real connoisseur.
smoking and roast are just few way i started cook the 7 types;I  grow.


Like good tasting tomatoes the UK is rarely mention as place find those.
gardeners delight and money maker seem to be well though of tomatoes in UK.
you can't even find tomatoes in UK with fuzz on them( Wapsipinicon Peach) unless you smuggle the seeds in or the tomatoes you left on counter have mold on them.
Finding a decent  yellow and white tomatoes if ask for one at farmers market in UK, I bet  they look at you as though your insane. 

[rokerman1973]

Hi Jeannine, probably my post set you thinking. I usually get most of my Garlic from the Isle of Wight where there is a garlic farm which I have visited. They grow and sell a variety of garlic but no where near 200 hundred varieties. As has been intimated I'm no real connoisseur. I was not aware that there were such a wide variety and differing strengths, taste etc. as in chilli. I suppose as a luddite I think that garlic is a standard addition to a recipe or individually roasted, with no thought to the differences between varieties. However you have awoken my interest and in the coming years may experiment with different garlic as I do love lots of garlic in my food. Thank you and take care.

[galina]

Plainleaf, there is no call for dismissing yet again how things are in the UK, when a) you don't know about it, b) there are very good reasons why some things are different.   

To answer your question Jeannine, I grow a French garlic that I got years ago, possibly Rose de Lautrec, but I can't be sure,  As it is early, very reliable and has reddish brown wrappers, I called it Early Brown.  Then a wonderful unnamed garlic from the supermarket of the California type (which I call 'Supermarket Delight'), lots of Elephant garlic and Babington leeks and California Early.  Also the hardnecks Red Rezan, Musik and Georgian Crystal.  The hardnecks are very variable, some years only tiny cloves, others better.  Georg.ian Crystal is quite a strongly flavoured garlic, but overall the hardnecks are not as happy in our soil and growing conditions as the softnecks.  I like the heat of Musik too, but most years the cloves are small and therefore difficult to peel.  A couple of years ago we got an unnamed Polish hardneck in the seed circle from goodlife, which seems a bit better adapted, but I am still evaluating how it will perform longer term. 

I often wonder why I am growing so many.  My mainstays in the kitchen are the Early Brown, the one from the supermarket, and as proper named garlic the best performer is California Early.

We have several specialist garlic suppliers in the UK, not just the Isle of Wight one.  I like this one:
http://www.reallygarlicky.co.uk/garlic

[Deb P]

I grow Marco, saved my own stock for several years successfully then lost the lot a few winters ago! Since then have not had enough to save and subsequently haven't recaptured the quality I once had. I guess it isn't as adapted to my site and conditions as previous strain was. I've tried several types over the years but Marco seems to be consistently good.

[Jeannine]

Plainleaf shame on you, that was very unkind ,the British have much more couth than you suggest, I am one of them and I know very few who grow Moneymakers, in fact I know more in the US where you are that grow them because they think they are a UK heirloom..heirloom my foot, the Brits grow many great tomatoes, Moneymakers are a joke in the Uk to many folks.  I suspect the garlic has not been available so much and is just coming into fashion..oh and I for one would never use powdered garlic on spaghetti or anything else// I am a bit offended you would make such a remark  and hurt my feelings, and I repeat I am one of them.

Folks there is a very good company quite local to me that has a great site for explaining garlic and it has an even better link to another one which gives all sorts of info..google  Boundary Garlic BC

Have to sign off as I eel a bit lightheaded,, I am OK don't panic , will carry on with this interesting post tomprrow as I wouod love to swap notes with you all.

[Tee Gee]

Would you believe it........I love 'Moneymaker' 

[galina]

Would you believe it........I love 'Moneymaker' 

And you are not the only one TG, although the one time I tried them I was 'underwhelmed'  ;)

But Gardener's Delight is an interesting one.  Fabulous flavour in cooler weather growing areas at higher latitudes, with a really good sweet to acid balance.  Plant them in hotter, brighter areas and they are just boring and bla, at best 'pleasant'.  So much depends on latitude, sunshine hours and soil constituents.

Sorry this was a complete sideline to the topic, but it happens to be one that I compared notes on, with the help of  US friends in various areas of the US 

[BarriedaleNick]

I find garlic tricky to grow properly. With clay soil (well just clay actually), rust and white rot prevalent on site, limited space and variable growing conditions I find that I can get poor results one year and good another.  Consequentially I tend to stick to what varieties work best overall - which so far is Marco.  I do throw a few into the mix - Thermadore and Isle of Wight (something!) this year but Marco seems to do well for me so I generally stick with it.

My local GC stocks maybe 10 varieties and even the Isle of Wight garlic farm only sells around 15 so you do have to make an effort to find different types. 

If I had more space to experiment with I would run to a few more types but my plot is too full of Gardener's Delight and Money Maker. ;-)

[galina]

  I suspect the garlic has not been available so much and is just coming into fashion..oh and I for one would never use powdered garlic on spaghetti or anything else//

Hope you are feeling better Jeannine.  Well actually, there is a big variety of Southern European and Eastern European garlic (which is where many of the US varieties come from), but the cooking fashion was not to use garlic at all in many countries including the upper-class UK cuisine. 

Having said this, I could not imagine French or Italian cuisine without garlic and there are some great varieties.  With a liking for foreign food after WWII and as the package holiday boom started, the popularity of garlic and garlic growing in the UK started in a big way.

However, Babington leeks, garlic chives, ramsons, three-cornered leeks and the like have always been part of UK cooking, certainly for the common people. 

[BarriedaleNick]

Thanks for that site Jeannine.  I have been wondering about drying my garlic this year and they have a little section on best practice - ta..

[galina]

I had all of my named varieties from this site, which unfortunately is no longer trading.  However there are lists of current garlic sellers and a great deal of general information about garlic.  They have kept much of their informative pages on this url.

http://www.garlicworld.co.uk/seednews.html

[Paulh]

Like Barriedale Nick, I have clay soil and my garlic gets rust and white rot, so I need varieties that mature fairly early. I was too slow getting them up this year and I lost 75% of my crop, so have just 12 from 50 planted. If I'd lifted them two weeks earlier, I'd have had most of them OK I reckon.

I've tried various varieties over the years but this year grew only Sprint. I bought them from Tamar Organics  http://www.tamarorganics.co.uk/ and was pleased with the price and quality. It's a hardneck variety - I like the scapes but didn't get any this year as the rust got to them too quickly.

I don't like Moneymaker - it seems to have no taste, but I've not knowingly eaten it for years. I grow Gardener's Delight which have a good taste and are a nice size. I also grow yellow tomatoes - Golden Sunrise currently. I've grown peach tomatoes too, from a mixed selection of seeds that was a freebies with a seed order. A bit strange but tasted nice enough.

[johhnyco15]

i grow what ever is handy to buy at planting time if I'm having a garden party that summer i look around to find variety's that will roast well and flavour whatever meat ill be serving ive still got 2 strings left from last season this year im growing germidor as it was cheap and has the flavour i like who knows what garlic delights await me next year only time will tell

[strawberry1]

I grow jolimont, all from cloves initially from the original bulbs 6 years ago. I dug the new bulbs up yesterday and they are good, large and heavy with no rot. They seem to like my soil, which is heavy clay but also now enriched as in a raised bed and never trodden. Rust was just appearing on the leaves. Yum yum, think I will bake some green garlic today