Garlic of the Day: Inchelium Red

Found at the Colville Indian Reservation in Inchelium, Washington, this variety is a winner among braidable artichoke type garlics.  Large bulbs with up to 20 cloves in layers.  Stores well and the flavor increases during storage.  This bulb is a national taste test winner in the softneck division and has a robust but not overwhelming flavor.  Good in many climates.

Suppliers:
Territorial Seed Company
High Mowing Seeds
Southern Exposure Exchange

Garlic of the Day: Siciliano

Excellent for sauces and pestos, Siciliano is a tasty favorite among garlic varieties.  This is another softneck artichoke type that is good for braiding.  Richly flavored and mildly pungent, this variety is a good keeper for a home cook who enjoys flavoring with garlic.  An old world variety, it has only been available in the US for about a decade.  This is a moderate garlic and pairs readily with tomato, pasta and olive oil.  By infusing olive oil with it's flavor the home cook can have a superior cooking oil.  Early harvester, 10 to 12 cloves per bulb, and keeps for 5-6 months.

Suppliers:

Tanglewood Creek Family Farm

Hood River Garlic

The Cook's Garden

Galic of the Day: Polish White

Harvest this soft neck variety in early summer and it will keep until mid winter.  This is a rich musky mellow garlic that is very popular in the United States.  This garlic has consistent yields and is easy to grow, very popular to grow in New England.  This garlic does well in cold weather and will produce 5-9 large cloves per artichoke type bulb.  It may have some purpling in the skin making it fairly attractive for display and braids well.  Excellent baker.

Suppliers:
Filagree Farms
Hood River
Karian Farms

Garlic of the Day: Silver Rose

Silver Rose Garlic is a softneck variety.  This artichoke bulb multiplies easily and is a great garlic for the garden.  One of the most attractive traits is the ease of which this garlic braids and keeps for up to 9 months making it one of the better keepers.  Silver Rose has a silver skin and rose meat.  It's a mild garlic but packs a little heat with little or no aftertaste.  Silver rose is a larger head with up to 12 cloves per head.  Rich and musky in garlickiness, yet mild in pungency.  These are a late harvest garlic and keep well into the next year.

Suppliers:
Gurney's
High Mowing Seeds
We Grow Garlic
Gormet Garlic Gardens

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.

 

Garlic of the Day - Paw Paw Garlic

Todays Garlic of the day is ...... The Paw Paw Garlic 

The rich, mellow Rocambole hardneck Garlic of the Midwest.

Rocamboles grow better in cold winter gardens.

Harvests in early summer - stores through fall into winter.

Paw Paw is rare because it is a full flavored mellow Rocambole with little or no hotness to the taste - excellent for Pesto.

Paw Paw is a generally good sized and can be a rather large garlic. Its flavor is rich and mellow like shallots but almost buttery and not hot or spicy and a warm pleasant aftertaste sticks around for a while. A very enriching taste experience and not one to burn your tongue.

From a grower's perspective, it grows well in cold winter areas and usually grows healthy surprisingly uniform sized bulbs. It has thick bulb wrappers for a rocambole and they have a lot of purple and brown layered across a white background - very attractive.

Paw Paw usually has anywhere from 8 or 9 easy to peel cloves that are of good size, with no smaller inner cloves. The outer bulb wrappers are thin and flake off easily so it is not a very good storer, but no Rocambole is. For those up north who want to grow their own garlic, it is said to grow well in wet conditions. It only takes a year or two to grow all you can eat. It harvests in early mid-season (Julyish) along with most of the other Rocamboles. Bulbs are usually over 2 1/2 inches in diameter and are of good size are grown primarily for their rich flavor and good growing characteristics.

Garlic of the Day - Applegate

Todays Garlic of the day is Applegate :
Harvests in early summer - stores into mid-winter

Applegate is a superb mild garlic that is excellent for raw eating as in pesto or added as something crunchy to tuna or chicken salad (it's that mild) or cooking where you want only the most delicate hint of garlic in your dish.

Applegate is an early harvesting fairly good storing garlic but should be grown in conjunction with a longer storing Porcelain or Silverwhite in order to be able to have good garlic year around.

Extremes of weather, such as extra cold or dry winters or high temperatures in the early spring can make it a warmer and stronger garlic. It is a wonderful garlic and I highly recommend it for those who love good tasting mild garlic. It is well worth growing and is a fairly early maturing garlic which you can be enjoying while most of the others are still in the ground.

Applegate is a good garlic to grow in warm winter areas.

 

Garlic of the Day - Sonoran

Todays garlic of the day is the classic ...Sonoran
Sonoran harvests VERY early - late spring to early Summer - stores until around November-December.

Sonoran is very early harvesting so you have garlic before anyone else and it grows well in the great American Southwest from Austin/San Antonio all the way to San Diego. If it grows well in the Sonoran Desert, for which it is named, it should grow well for you.
Growing it in conjunction with a longer storing garlic like Ajo Rojo may mean you never run out of good garlic.

Asiatic garlics typically have six to ten cloves per bulb in a circular configuration around a central scape. They're generally large bulbs with fat cloves. The bulb wrappers are firm, tight and vivid with broad, bold purple stripes merging into areas of solid purple. A very strongly colored garlic. The clove covers are a silky golden tan with a rosy aura. It is one of the very first cultivars planted in the fall and the first harvested in the spring around here. The taste puts it in a class almost by itself.

When you first bite into a clove there is a beautiful musky garlic flavor that has just enough pungency (hotness) to let you know it is real garlic but not enough to be offensive so you settle back and enjoy the marvelous flavor. And after a minute or so, the rich garlickiness is replaced with a smooth warm aftertaste that just makes you feel good.

If you are looking for an early season garlic that harvests before any of the others and is great for raw eating and stores about six months from harvest at room temp., this one is for you.

Garlic of the Day - Chesnok Red

todays Garlic of the day is ...... The Chesnok Red
Chesnok Red is yet another one of the garlics from the Republic of Georgia in the former USSR. Chesnok is a standard Purple Stripe and has the typical heavy purple striping that gives this variety its name. They have about as much purple as Rocamboles but the background color of the bulb wrappers is much more whitish, making for a very attractive appearance. Chesnok Red can become a rather large garlic with excellent growing conditions.

The outer bulb wrappers are a little thin & loose, but the more you peel away, the thicker and tighter they get (makes the bulb wrappers easy to peel). Once the cloves are revealed, they are seen to be large and with long thin points and are all milky white with cranberry-colored streaks up the outsides of the cloves whike the edges between the cloves are nearly solid cranberry and the elongated tips rather tannish. Large bulbs will have about a dozen cloves and even the inner ones are of good size. They can run an inch or two up the central scape (false stem) and are not only attractive but make the cloves easy to peel.

They have fewer but larger cloves (average of 8 to 10) arranged in a rather circular pattern. Although large bulbs will have about a dozen cloves and even the inner ones are of good size.

Chesnok Red is a full flavored garlic with a mellow aftertaste that sticks around nicely for a while. Best baking garlic and a great all-around garlic. Some years it can be hotter or milder than usual, but it is always fully garlicky.

Chesnok Red is the sweetest roasting garlic of them all; It doesn't just taste not garlicky, it actually tastes sweet. Garlic ice cream made with roasted Chesnok Red has the taste and crunchiness of butter brickle ice cream - try it, it's fabulous

 

Garlic of the Day - Georgian Fire

Introducing the " Georgian fire "
Grows well in most states even some years in Warm Winter Areas, but will be marginal there in years with early hot summers.
Harvests early-mid summer - stores into spring.

Georgian Fire, like most porcelains is a large and beautiful garlic with rich robust flavor that is strong and has an aftertaste that lingers. The clove covers are a light brown streaked with purple From a growers perspective, it is a large and healthy garlic to grow and appears to be relatively resistant to most of the diseases that can affect garlic. It originated in the Republic of Georgia. 

Garlic of the Day - Amish

Todays Garlic of the day is the Amish ....Harvests early-mid summer - stores through fall into winter.
Amish Rocambole may be an heirloom garlic, who knows? (a garden plant whose lineage can be traced for a 100 years or more) It is a generally a vigorous grower with large foliage that is dark green and results in a pretty good sized bulb. Being a Rocambole garlic, its flavor is very strong, hot and spicy and sticks around for a long time. From a growers perspective, it grows well in cold winter areas, but does poorly in warm winter areas, and usually grows healthy fairly uniform sized bulbs. It has thin bulb wrappers that have a lot of purple and brown .Amish Rocambole usually has anywhere from 8 or 9 easy to peel cloves that are of good size, with no smaller inner cloves. The outer bulb wrappers are thin and flake off easily so it is not a very good storer, but no Rocambole is - through the fall and into winter. Great taste is their claim to fame, not long storage. For those up North who want to grow their own garlic it only takes a year or two to grow all you can eat. It harvests in early summer along with most of the other Rocamboles. Bulbs are usually over 2 1/2 inches in diameter and are of good size are grown primarily for their particularly rich flavor.

Garlic of the Day - Rogue River Red

Todays Garlic of the day is.... Rogue River Red !! 
Rogue River red is an early-mid season harvesting medium-rich flavored and medium pungent softneck Artichoke with straw-colored clove covers and often a lot of purplish color to the bulb wrappers. Excellent all-around garlic that can be braided and stores into mid-winter.

It is good to grow these along with Porcelains or Silverskin garlics so you can have both early season and longer storing kinds. You may not ever run out of good garlic.

Grows very well in most of the USA and can even be grown in warm winter areas quite well.

Garlic of the Day, Burgundy Garlic!

 
and todays Garlic of the day is the stunning Burgundy!

 Burgundy is as beautiful a garlic as the name implies. The Creole group may well be the most beautiful of all garlics for more than one reason. It was hard to believe Creoles were silverskins as they don't resemble any other silverskins in any way. Botanists assu"red" us; however, that they were genetically silverskins, but it turns out not to be so. They are in an class all of their own and it shows. If I have a personal favorite garlic, this one is it. I love so many of them it is hard to pick a single one, but I could not leave these beauties off any list of favorites. They look almost too pretty to eat-until you try one, then you realize they're too beautiful not to eat.

The bulb wrappers have a lovely deep rose color to them and the more layers you peel off, the prettier they get. When you finally get down to the cloves, which are arranged in circular fashion around the center, much like rocamboles, the clove covers are almost "red" with delicate burgundy colo"red" vertical streaks. They look more like flowers than garlic and are so perfectly arrayed that you are reluctant to pull off a clove and disturb the symmetry of it all. You almost feel as though you are violating it. But you have to taste test it so you pull off a clove and peel its cover off and take that first bite almost with a feeling of regret and apologizing to it for doing such violence to it. You bite off the upper half of the naked clove and fall in love with it as it tastes every bit as good as it looks. Burgundy has a wonderfully mild, yet full flavor with only moderate heat. In my view, it is one of the best of all garlics for enjoyable raw eating. It is so good that you eagerly rip off another clove and dig in without apology (Once is never enough with a garlic like this.) 

Burgundy is about the size of the average silverskin and stores just as clean and firm almost as long, but not quite. Burgundy tends to grow clean also and seems almost immune to some of the problems that can plague some of the other varieties. That may be because Burgundy grows better in warmer climates than many kinds of garlic. Not all cultivars are well suited to growing in mild winter and warm to hot spring climates but the Creole garlics do very well here in central Texas and other warmer climates. The excellent condition of our original seedstock that we got from Filaree Farms in Washington implies that it does pretty good in the cold areas also. You might want to buy a handful of these garlics even if you hate garlic; they make a fabulous centerpiece for the festive table.