Garlic Progress Feb 2018

Garlic Plantings 1.11.17

Planted my first garlic of the Autumn..

Planted EPW, Sprint, Printanor and Messidrome

Garlic Harvested June 26th

SOLENT WIGHT

Quite a good crop of Solent Wight this year

MESSIDROME


An excellent crop of Messidrome this year with good big bulbs

SPRINT

Okay crop of Sprint this year 

EARLY PURPLE WIGHT & MG GARLIC

Good crop of EPW and average crop of MG naturalised bulbils

Garlic Planted in Bed 3 & Bed 6

BED 3: Sowed 2 beds of Garlic today (Sunday, November 6th)

One bed is 4 rows of Printanor which is a French grown softneck. This is a new one for me to grow  and it is described as "a reasonably new variety with large bulbs filed with plump tasty cloves".

We shall see in Summr 2017!

I also covered the bed over with Enviromesh to keep our cat off it (see above).

To make this easier in futute, I need to add some more support on the top of these beds....

BED 6: On Bed 6 I planted 4 rows of garlic cloves; one each of Solent Wight, EPW, Sprint & Messidrome.

Hardnecks planted so far are: EPW, Sprint

Softnecks planted so far are: Printanor, Solent Wight & Messidrome

I also have some "saved" cloves that have been grown from Garlic round over the last couple of years with the hope that they become "naturalised" to my local environment...

I have not replanted these yet...Pending Job!!

Hardneck Garlic:

Hardnecks will store for three to six months on average so are grown for early winter usage.

There are many different varieties of these; ones I have grown are Early Purple Wight (EPW), Sprint and Vayo.

 Many of these hardnecks have some colouring to them such as streaks of purple, red or brown.

They are valued for their high allicin content and great flavour that holds up in cooking.

Hardnecks can be a little challenging when separating the cloves as they have a fair amount of "parchment" or the papery skins you have to peel away to get at the "meat". They tend to have a inner circle of large cloves with a few smaller cloves on the outside.

Softneck Garlic:

Softneck garlic’s advantage is that they store longer, up to nine months.

They generally have numerous cloves in a head. These are normally white and the garlic you see in the supermarkets is usually a Softneck variety. Flavour is good and can be from mild to very strong.

The necks are more pliable than hardneck varieties so they make good candidates for braiding.
Examples I have grown are Iberian Wight, Solent Wight, Jolimont, Messidrome & Printanor (new for 2016)