Comments on: Garlic, plant it now!

By: Penny

Penny — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 05:15:10 +0000

Hi Madge,
I suspect the garlic you have dug up is Elephant or Russian Garlic, this is not a true garlic but still has good garlic flavour, just not as strong. It will produce either rounds, or two or three big cloves, and lots of baby bulbs around the base. You can harvest and eat the big one, and leave the smaller ones to grow into a new big plant the following year. Russian or Elephant garlic is more closely related to leeks than garlic, and will often produce a flower stem and a big round flower. True garlic may produce rounds, instead of a bulb with cloves, if it is planted late in the season. This can still be eaten, or it can be left in the ground and the following year it will produce a bulb with cloves. Hope this helps,
with best wishes,
Penny

By: Madge

Madge — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 01:41:05 +0000

I planted lots of garlic from Diggers early in the year and today dug one up and it only had the one round with a few tiny ones at the base. Wonder what went wrong?

By: Penny

Penny — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 23:51:03 +0000

Hi Helen, The plant you describe is either Russian garlic (also know as elephant garlic) or perennial leeks. Russian garlic is actually more closely related to leeks than garlic but as it produces large cloves as well as the rounds that you described, the name garlic seems to have stuck. It is often found in old gardens and is very drought tolerant, so much so that it can become a pest in gardens with good rainfall. It's flavour is mild, somewhere between garlic and leeks. It produces a large, very attractive flower head in spring, you can see a picture of flower on the front cover of my book Garlic and friends. Perennial leeks are very similar to Russian garlic, except that they never form cloves. In late spring and summer the base of the stem swells to form a round. At the same time numerous small bulbs form around the base and each of these produces leaves. These can be detached to form new plants. The whole plant can be eaten and has a mild leek/onion/garlic flavour. — PW

By: Helen Smith

Helen Smith — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 00:25:17 +0000

Thanks for the planting instructions and the recipe. Having just bought 2 heads of locally grown (Gippsland) garlic which is pesticide free I will devote one head to the chicken and commit one to the ground.

A question: I have found a couple of garlic plants around the garden which do not have separate cloves. These one clove heads are delicious – quite mild. Is this a specific variety of garlic or simply previously cloved headed garlic which has lost it over many years of neglect? (I took over an overgrown garden in 2009 and am still findings lost treasures and oddities.

Thanks again Penny – a great site