Garlic, 'Product of China'.

[Soilsniffer]

I read somewhere that China has overtaken USA for #1 in garlic production. Gilroy isn't the garlic capital any more.

I bought some grocery store garlic last month, 'Product of China'. Sigh. I've been trying to buy just USA products before China takes over everything, but bought the imported stuff this time. Couldn't help it; they were beautiful. Clean and bright, uniform in size (all five heads in the package were between 70 and 75g each). $1.49 for the five.

Took 'em home, busted a bunch open. Hardneck. Liberated the seven largest cloves (9 8 8 7 7 7 7 grams), made pasta with a bunch of the 6g and less cloves. Delicious. Only about a 2 or 3 on the heat side, but the flavor was an 8 or 9.

Planted the seven liberated cloves 21 October. They were up in a week. And now, early morning 02 November, they're up over four inches. All seven of 'em. I planted other varieties (mostly heirlooms) 14 and 16 Oct, and maybe 3 or 4 of those have popped up, barely. Yet here's some new stuff out of China that got so tall in just a week and a half. And it tasted wonderful.

Though I'm trying to buy american, China is growing some fine garlic, in this case anyway. Anyone else attempting China garlic?

Awaiting next year's crop,
Jay

[dcarch]

Originally Posted by Soilsniffer

I read somewhere that China has overtaken USA for #1 in garlic production. Gilroy isn't the garlic capital any more.
------------Jay

Let it be known that garlic grown in China lacks the chemical component neccessary to fend off Dracula and vampires.

dcarch

[tomatoaddict]

I could never buy garlic from the grocery ever again. Not since growing my own. The difference is unbelievable. Kind of like having an heirloom tomato and then going back to the bland, lifeless tomatoes in the store. Fresh garlic beats store garlic from anywhere in the world. Including here.

[neoguy]

Are you sure they're really hardneck? One head of hardneck should yield 4-6 large cloves per head. So, from 5 heads I would expect 20-30 seed cloves.

Other questions to keep in mind:

How were they grown, were they chemically treated? Were they treated in some way prior to export? When were they harvested? How long will they store? Granted, if you're buying garlic only as you need it, storage won't be an issue.
But, I can tell you the flavor of freshly harvested garlic is wonderful, of course you need to let them cure for a few weeks. One last thing, you only need to buy seed garlic once. Save the largest heads for the next planting.

I've been growing the same unknown hardneck for years. This year, by chance I bought a couple of heads of Bogatyr from a local farmer. After doing some research this summer, Bogatyr will probably become my main garlic crop in the future. The descriptions I've read say this usually always produces the largest heads and storage of 9 months is common.

[Earl]

Won't be long before you'll read a headline like this:

Chinese Garlic Recall
Chinese garlic growers accused of stuffing "lead shaving" in garlic heads to increase weight! :-)

With all that lead over there it's a wonder China hasn't sunken out of sight and become another sea. :-)

[tomatoaddict]

Chinese Garlic Recall
Chinese garlic growers accused of stuffing "lead shaving" in garlic heads to increase weight! :-)

Good one Earl

[Worth1]

You guys better think long and hard before you eat food grown in china.
I heard the soil was so contaminated there that stuff like PCB’s were showing up in vegetables and the like.
These guys don’t give a dam about their people, so what makes you think they give a dam about us.
They are using polluted water from industry runoff to irrigate their crops.
Shame on companies that go for more profit at the cost of human life


Just my take on the matter,

Worth

[Andrey_BY]

I've seen a lot of Chinese garlic stuff in our shops and markets as well. The apperance and taste are on a lower side than our local varieties produced in Belarus. But Chinese prices beat ours. That's the only reason why our people buy Chinese products.
Generally speaking agriculture of Belarus produce everything for our needs but Tropic fruits. Many friends of mine used to come to Belarus from Baltic countries and Poland (all now in EU) to buy our vegetables because of mostly organically grown technologies, an exceptional taste well-known from Soviet times and much lower prices. Their grocery stores now full of tasteful vegetable products mainly from Holland and China. They failed to support their own farmers like France always do and now they forced to go abroad to find tasty vegetables...

[Soilsniffer]

To expand just a bit --

All of a sudden I feel the need to defend myself. I bought supermarket garlic ... because I had to. My homegrown stash (Bogatyr, Music, the other usual suspects) ran out in four months. I agree homegrown garlic is superior, I was just sharing an observation about how much the China garlic grew in just a week. And it's up another inch since my earlier post.

Neoguy: Yep, definitely hardneck. I bought a pack of five, and two of them had the distinctive hard stem thing in the middle. The other three did not, and were two-layered.

Worth: I've 'heard' similar stories about food and other things produced in China (BESIDE the lead paint recalls lately which got a LOT of media coverage) but didn't mention anything here lest a political argument would start, which isn't my intention. I'm with you on your thoughts tho.

J

[tomatoaddict]

J

No offense intended here. I just ramble.....

[neoguy]

Jay,

Next year you'll have to plant 3 times as much

[Worth1]

I don’t feel you need to defend your self Jay, I buy store bought garlic all of the time.
Probably even Chinese garlic, I had no idea they shipped garlic from China.
I wonder how much that poor farmer gets for his garlic.

Worth

[tuk50]

I wonder how much that poor farmer gets for his garlic.

I recently purchased 10 heads of garlic in a net sack for 99cents with the lable (product of china) on it, here in Tucson. The farmer obviously got nothing for this sack of garlic. To grow in china soil, truck to dock, ship to San Diego, truck to Tucson, and me spending 3.oo for a gallon of gas to go to the gro store. It seems impossible. 8)

[barkeater]

I don't understand. Garlic has to be the easiest crop to grow yourself, and in the space 1 tomato plant takes up, you'll harvest more than you and a family of 4 could eat in a year!. Buy it once, and grow it for life.

[mdvpc]

Bark-explain that to me please-I have never grown garlic-If I had 2 or 3 containers, large 25 gallon ones, how much garlic could I grow? When would I plant it (remember, I am in the desert Southwest in zone 8. My wife and I eat a lot of garlic.