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I love growing garlic - it's easy, tastes great, and no critters bother it in the garden. This past winter in the PNW was very mild. We had only a couple of snow flurries, and it never stayed cold for long.
I order my garlic from Filaree Garlic Farm in Washington State. This year, I grew seven varieties, and here’s my review of how they performed. (Note: I haven’t tasted them yet — that’s a future post!)
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Nootka Rose - Big harvest with lots of medium-sized white heads, blushed with rose.
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Georgian Crystal - Small harvest, small heads. I won’t grow this one again.
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Lotus - Pretty purple stripes and good-sized heads.
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Rose De Lautrec - Big harvest but tiny heads. I’ll wait to taste before deciding if it’s a keeper.
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Burgundy - A mix of decent-sized and small heads, with a purple blush.
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Music - Big harvest and big heads this year — probably the best I’ve seen this variety perform.
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Artichoke (elephant) garlic - Didn’t mature this year, but I’m still using it for garlic cubes in the freezer.
A note on the Artichoke (elephant) garlic. I saved cloves from last year’s elephant garlic and thought I picked good ones. But this year, the leaves turned brown before the cloves had fully formed — they looked more like onions. I’m not sure if it was the cloves I selected or the mild winter that caused it. Either way, I harvested them and processed them as planned. Since elephant garlic is mild in flavor, I chopped them up and made garlic cubes.
Garlic cubes:
1. Peel all the garlic.
2. Chop as finely as you like.
3. Press the chopped garlic into an ice cube tray.
4. Pour extra virgin olive oil over the top to fill the tray.
5. Freeze, then transfer the cubes into freezer bags for storage.
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1 comment
Filaree is way too expensive for 1/4 lbs. of garlic. Looks like you got lots of small heads. Too bad.