Wonderful Garlic harvest!

[British Red]

I know Garlic is one of those "love it / hate it" items - but we are firmly in the "love it" camp - from our home made Garlic Aioli through oven roasted whole heads to garlic spiced chicken....always good.

Anyway for many years I have been growing different strains, holding back the best heads of the best strains and trying to end up with a variety that has good keeping qualities and great flavour. We got that a few years ago and have since been breeding for size.

I think, this year, we have finally got it right

This is the head size we got this year

Garlic in hand by British Red, on Flickr


.... compared with what I consider a "supermarket sized" head on the left


Garlic for scale by British Red, on Flickr


Once the top growth dies back I'll reserve the very largest heads for re-planting in a few months - and this year I'll even have a few large heads left over


Garlic on drying rack by British Red, on Flickr

(Worry not - there are more racks!)

 

[RE8ELD0G]

Very nice looking Garlic there.
Cant wait to be planting some myself, i too am a garlic lover.

 

[British Red]

I usually plant in early October and over winter...so you shouldn't have long to go Get some quality strains though - I made the mistake of buying rubbish stock to begin with and got rubbish results

 

[Gooner]

Pulled some of mine today, alas the bulbs were quite small and had signs of mildew near base, the type we used was the Elephant variety in past years it has been good, not sure what went wrong this year.
Yours seem to be spot on what variety was it?

 

[dwardo]

Monsters, sterling job. We have garlic in pretty much everything with only Sundays spare.
Whats the secret? and I mean ejit instructions! I have plenty of uninspired ground to grow them in.

 

[GGTBod]

In the love it section here too, those look really spot on the smell must be amazing there right now, i was in a wood full of wild garlic last week and i couldn't get enough of the scent

 

[British Red]

Its my own now Gooner - not a named variety - its certainly a hard neck and between a Porcelain and a Purple Stripe. Not as coloured as a purple stripe but more cloves than a porcelain - almost a white Rocambole.

 

[British Red]

Whats the secret? and I mean ejit instructions! I have plenty of uninspired ground to grow them in.

Selective breeding for good genetics

Well manured, free draining ground

Plant on 1st of October for some good roots and top growth then over Winter

Don't let them dry out

Remove the scapes at 6" by pulling not cutting (and make omlettes or stir fry with them - they are delicious)

Harvest early June

Dry well before storing

Thats it really

 

[Macaroon]

That garlic looks really good, Hugh; for me it's one of the things that would be on the list of "if you could only have ten things in the kitchen for a month"! When we were kids in Ireland it was a big ceremony to go out to the garden and plant the garlic at midnight on Haloween.

 

[Mesquite]

Some good sized garlic there Hugh

What's its strength like?

 

[British Red]

Not above a medium even at this stage Steve - creamy and oniony with a garlic warmth - no "fire" or harshness though.

 

[Mesquite]

...creamy and oniony with a garlic warmth - no "fire" or harshness though.

That sounds delicious

 

[British Red]

That sounds delicious

We like it. Its funny though isn't it? People will debate potato varieties, chilli varieties (well, you and I do), apple varieties.

Why NOT garlic varieties?

 

[Quixoticgeek]

Garlic: Plant on the shortest day, harvest on the longest day.

An old saying for anyone wanting to plant garlic for the first time.

J

 

[tartanferret]

Great looking crop there Red !

Is there an Isle of white or solent variety? Sure thats what we grew years ago.

will you be smoking any of it? We like using the outer skins of smoked garlic when making béchamel sauce and potato dauphinoise. A nice smokey infusion

 

[British Red]

I haven't built my cold smoker yet TF - but it is on the list!

 

[beachlover]

Is there an Isle of white or solent variety? Sure thats what we grew years ago.

These?

http://www.thegarlicfarm.co.uk/Solent-Wight-Garlic-Seed-x-4-Bulbs.aspx

 

[spiritwalker]

when you say selective breeding are you letting them run to flower and taking seed from the best or just selecting the best bulbs to regrow? and is there any bumf that this works for bulb based plants as its something i would like to do, love garlic but thought you would need to cross pollinate them to get true genetic selection of the best otherwise surely your only cloning your good ones in which they surely cant get bigger each year this way? very curious on how you are going about it im starting to save seed from my veggies for similar experiments.


Also just to point out if your planning on growing garlic start off with a proper variety from a garden centre or online seed stock bulbs dont use supermarket ones as they are prone to carry eelworm.

 

[spiritwalker]

oh and i forgot to add cracking haul youve got there Red

 

[British Red]

Hi Spiritwalker,

You are quite correct, you do need to allow the best bulbs to flower (the scapes mentioned above), in order to change the genetic stock. Fortunately I find the bulbs have developed by the time the scapes emerge so I remove the scapes from all but the best (see above) to get what I was looking for. I do find germination rates from the resultant seeds to be poor though - unlike - for example - chive or welsh onion or many of the other alliums which are much easier to seed save.

If you want to get into seed saving, I highly reccomend "Back Garden Seed Saving" by Sue Stickland - great book - although I still haven't got my screening right for carrot seeds