Your favourite garlic varieties
 

I'm curious about the garlic varieties that do best for people in different places.
Which ones do you prefer, and why? Which are the earliest, or the hardiest, or biggest, or tastiest in your farm or garden?

I've been growing up garlic from bulbils for a few years, but got a windfall of seed garlic that was left over after helping to plant at the farm last fall. So I built a couple of new beds, and I have some new varieties. It's early season here, and there are some big differences in the different garlics.

This bed has two varieties in it: Argentina on the left, and Spanish Roja on the right. Argentina is the earliest of all and really vigorous. Spanish Roja came up quite a bit later. The cloves were a good size and these did well at the farm, but it's colder at my site I think.

This bed had garlic in it two years ago and peppers last year. I had to dig the bed completely and lay cardboard beneath because fireweed was creeping in from below. Planted here are Music which I grew up from bulbils, in the first two rows, and the rest are New York White - a softneck.
Wire and whatnot are to keep moose from walking through it.

The bed for my rounds was made last, and planted in really cold wet weather. I don't know if that's why there are so many misses. :?!?::( Not sure which end the rows start from but there are a few different varieties in here: Spanish Roja, Chesnok Red, Music and Persian Star. May have lost the SR and my last Chesnoks. I had a lot of Persian Star rounds and have a couple of patches of the smaller ones elsewhere in the garden that are up and doing fine.

and the bulbils
 

And of course the bulbils were really last. Most of these are Music this year, one of the small tubs is of Argentina from the couple of plants I had last summer (and did fantastic in spite of the crappy weather). The black pot is Kostyn's Red Russian, looking big! and the white pot, Susan Delafield. These came from Nicky's swap and were planted late winter, and are looking just as good as the others. :) The bulbils have only been up a week or so.

My favorite is, "Free" :)

I'm curious to what varieties others like to grow too. So far, Elephant garlic has grown pretty well for us.

Free and fresh. :yes: Garlic keeps really well in the kitchen here, I'm sure it would last the full year if I grow enough - this year, I may have enough. :lol:
But then, like tomatoes.. can you ever have too many varieties? :surprised:

I had some sulfur based fertilizer and used it on the garlic every time I fertilized.

I used a whole head in my salsa and the smell almost took me out and this is a person that can eat it raw.
I had to turn the evacuation fan on in the garage. :lol:


Worth

I have many varieties growing this year. I really don't know which is good right now, but pskem has been the strongest growing so far.

Big thick stems. It's produced scapes and has been the earliest one to do so.

Me and a cousin planted around 700 cloves last fall...
600 me
100 him
I planted Music,Bogatyr, Purple Italian, Early California, Late California...
He planted I have no idea...then gave them some kind of nitrate ammonia, or something which
killed most of his garlic, and part of my California's
Bogatyr and Music are huge my best garlic this year.

I've tried several hardnecks, but the one that consistently beats out everything else is one called German White which I bought directly from the farmer at a garlic festival about five years ago. It never lets me down, and is nice and hot and juicy.

I also bought Music seed stock at that same festival from a different farmer. After two good years, it started doing poorly and I eventually stopped re-planting.

I tried German Red and Spanish Roja, but they weren't happy here, so I gave them up after two years.

For last year I bought seed stock for Siberian and Metechi. I had a total crop failure with Metechi, and managed to harvest about 50% of the Siberian.

This year I'm growing Music from new stock and it's doing well. I also replanted most of the Siberian harvest, but germination was spotty. This might be it's last year.

German White, of course, is doing great -- 100% germination and big healthy stalks.

Music is definitely a good garlic for us, and I'm impressed with how quickly it grew up from bulbils - faster than I expected for sure.

But I must admit, I'm a sucker for the big vigorous plants like Argentina - the lead over the others is amazing. German White sounds like another porcelain worth looking out for!

I haven't tried any Marbled Purple Stripe here yet, except for the Kostyn's Red Russian bulbils that just sprouted, which I'm pretty excited about.:) Bogatyr and Pskem both sound excellent. The vigorous have the best chance in a short iffy season like ours... if they can take it.

In Purple Stripes, the Chesnok Red got a lot smaller last year than the bulb I started with the year before. It was cold and I picked a bad spot with more shade than they liked. The Chesnok have small cloves anyway and so the smaller bulbs had even tinier cloves... :( They're the last left in my larder because such a PIA to peel. :lol: Persian Star were pretty small too but the rounds did well so they're getting a foothold and looking worth the real estate... in a year or two, maybe. But so far, I'm still looking for purple stripey things that are big and burly. :roll:

I think there's lots of sulfur in the soil here so never heard of anyone adding sulfur in fertilizer... and the garlic and onions seem plenty strong. :yes: I'm all about the delicious raw garlic, use the rasp to liquify it into some EVOO, fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper and the herb of your choice or some fine parmesan and heaven, thank you. :D

I wish I could grow real garlic here.:(
The creole is what I heard does the best of the hard necks.
I also read on line you couldn't grow good garlic from store bought cloves.
Hog wash I just did this year.
The trick is knowing when to pull it what size cloves to plant and when to plant it.
One 5 X1 2 bed is going to be devoted to garlic next year maybe two 5X12 beds.
Worth

Worth, I read I believe that the softnecks do better in the south.
Creole, maybe it's good?
Hopefully someone will chime in about varieties that do well without much winter too.

The one I have called 'Argentina' came from a friend who got it in Nova Scotia. I tried searching online but couldn't find information about it. But I did find that Argentina the country is one of the world's biggest producers of garlic, all kinds afaict.:surprised:
Not sure if they have more winter than you do, I'd be surprised.

Bower artichoke is all I have tried to grow.
Elephant should do well but it isn't a true garlic.
Argentina is a big long country with many climates and altitudes suitable for anything.
Worth