Garlic

When I was out in the field taking the picture of Tom's pea fence (see previous blog entry), I noticed that our garlic had grown tall enough you could see it through the mulch.  We plant garlic in October, mulch it to protect it for the winter and harvest it in June.

There are a lot of different types of garlic and, to a garlic novice, like me, they seem awfully complicated.  For example, there are porcelains, rocamboles, artichokes, Asiatics, turbans and Creoles.  Some of these are soft-necked and some of these are hard-necked.  The soft-necked types can be "braided" into ropes of garlic.  Some of the varieties are hot and some are mild. 

Last year, we grew a variety called Romanian Red, a porcelain type, that the catalog said was "hot and pungent with a healthy, long lasting bite".   I was afraid that nobody would want to buy something that strayed so far from what we are used to buying in the grocery store.  But, we found that it was the first to sell out last summer at the farmers market.  So, we made sure to order more Romanian Red for this year.  We also have Creole Red, Persian Star, German Extra Hardy, Ichellium Red and Elephant garlic (which is not a true garlic believe it or not!).  I'm not sure what variety is pictured below, but here is what the garlic looks like at this point.