Monday, April 29, 2013

Garlic of the Day - California Early



Todays Garlic of the day is .... the California Early !
This one of the two Gilroy cultivars is the one you're least likely to find in the local supermarkets because it is processed into dried and pickled and otherwise processed garlic products. California Early is a little bigger and sweeter than California Late, which is definitely on the hot side. Cal Early is said to be very early maturing but it seems to be more of a mid-artichoke-season garlic for us, though it is a prolific grower and a good commercial garlic. It does seem to tolerate our hot spring weather well and stores well also.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much better our Cal Early garlic was than the ones we bought in the stores. The difference our healthy soil and careful handling makes is phenomenal.When grown and harvested properly, Cal Early is an excellent all- around general use garlic and a wonderful baker.

It ranks 4-5 on the garlickiness scale and 3-4 on the pungency side. It has a semi-rich flavor and a little bite, but is still on the light side.

It's a very good growers garlic as it has many large cloves (even the innermost cloves are of good size) and it stores well under proper conditions. The Gilroy growers knew good garlic when they saw it, it was their agricultural practices and resulting soil conditions that made the difference.
 

No comments:

Post a Comment