The garlic had a bit of trouble poking through the moss mulch so I removed it two days ago. After that, I got terrible tendinitis in flexor tendons of both of my feet and I could barely walk for nearly two days. Luckily it subsided almost as quickly as it started but I did not manage to re-do the mulching before late frost came. The plants should survive it but it is a bugger nevertheless.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I planted five varieties, and I noted them in the picture. The label for each patch is in its lower left corner. Let us say something about them, starting from the left upper corner. I bought one seeding kit for each variety which consisted of three bulbs, except the last one, which only had two.
Rusinka – the bulbs had huge cloves, but only a few of them in each bulb, I got 23 cloves. It is a purple hardneck variety that allegedly originates from Russia (I am immediately prejudiced against this innocent plant) and it should be fairly frost-resistant. I did not do an exact count now and I can’t do one on the photo due to the bamboo obstructing the view a bit, but it seems that cloves survived winter so far. Huge cloves are a plus but I would prefer to have more of them in each bulb so I do not need to save up too high a percentage of plants to continue growing the variety.
Slavín – the bulbs were reasonably big but had some small-ish cloves – I got 30 cloves overall. This is a purple hardneck variety too and it seems all cloves survived winter and are doing reasonably well. I hope this one does well, I would like to have some choice in my garlic in the following years.
Janko – on delivery, very similar to Rusinka but it had even fewer but bigger cloves in each bulb. I only got 13 cloves. Thus the potential problem remains as with Rusinka. We shall see how this one does. I think all 13 cloves poked out of the ground.
Benátčan – this is the only white softneck variety that I decided to try and whilst I would like to have such a variety in my garden, I am preliminarily not optimistic. I got 50 cloves from the three bulbs and some of them were positively tiny. Even if the garlic is delicious, it is a pain in the ass to work in the kitchen. The plus side, according to the seller, should be a very long shelf-life. We shall see, how it fares. Allegedly softneck varieties do not do so well at my altitude.
Havel – another purple hardneck variety and this one I did not actually buy. My nephew bought two bulbs in the farmer’s market for food but the bulbs were so pretty that I decided to plant the cloves. I got 13 big cloves from just two bulbs and the cloves were pretty evenly sized which is a definitive plus if that continues to be the case. Even in the picture, it can be seen that all 13 cloves survived and are now bigger than all the other varieties. I did not like the president whose name this variety carries but I am still somewhat prejudiced in its favor. I hope it does well, especially I hope it survives this bout of frost since I am still slightly limping and cannot go outside to mulch them again.
After the harvest, I will decide which ones to continue to grow and which ones to discontinue. Nematodes can be a problem with garlic here, although my father used to grow it a lot when I was a kid. And my neighbor used to grow garlic every year right up to the year she died. We shall see how this garlic experiment goes. I would like to grow at least two varieties that do well. To cover my needs, I need to grow approximately 50 bulbs for food and an equal amount of cloves for planting for next year.
garlic is a character. tastes good in so many things, not just a spice but a food in its own right. but it can get you. once met a conventionally attractive korean lady who was practically pepper spraying from her throat. once met an old greek guy who was basically a garlic elemental, exuding allicin from every pore.
@Bébé Mélange, I do not need to worry too much about that right now, I do not leave the house too often and meet many people at a closer distance than several meters. It does help to stop eating garlic a day or two before social event. And also it helps to drink milk after a garlicy food. I just googled this folk wisdom and there is apparently even a scientific study about it on PubMed
Bébé Mélange @1: Had a girlfriend once who consumed lots of garlic. Going down on her was…interesting, but not as pleasant as it might have been. The solution? I started consuming garlic. Worked wonderfully. For us, anyway.
useful information all around, huzzah!
Interesting how these all seem to have eastern European names of various sorts. But I suppose that makes sense. Where else in the world would there have been the motivation to sink so much time and effort into advancing garlic technology, but the part notorious for spawning vampires. :)
Bekenstein Bound @#5
Well the Isle of Wight for one, there’s a garlic farm there that have developed at least a dozen varieties.
Charly it looks like all the varieties are doing well.
We can’t over winter things like garlic cloves or broad beans, it’s just too wet here and our soil is on top of clay you could make pots with, even with the raised beds the cloves just rot. We did try starting the cloves in pots in the autumn, but the spring planted garlic did far better, so we don’t bother now. It would be nice to get the planting done at a quieter time of year, but we manage.