Award winning garlic

4-6 large, fat cloves
Easy to peel
Very strong in general (high yield of allicin)
Sulfurous and unsubtle
Less generous in flavour complexity and depth
Long storage life of 6-9 months
Very cold hardy for growing in Canadian climates

Our Cultivars: Susan Delafield, Northern Quebec, Great Northern

7-9 medium, plump cloves
Easy to peel
Relatively sweet, compared to Porcelains
Hot when raw, but relatively moderate and balanced
Rich, deep, complex flavour
Shorter storage life of 4-6 months
Good for growing in cold climates

Our cultivars: Newfoundland, Russian Red, Italian Purple, and Korean Purple,

Squat and Blocky Cloves
Milder in general with fairly complex flavour
Most productive, least problematic
Early maturing and most widely adapted for growing conditions
Long storage of 9-12 months

Our Cultivars: Transylvania

6-8 Squat Cloves
Well-rounded in heat and flavour (somewhere between Porcelain and Rocambole)
Good amount of heat when raw
Very attractive for braiding
Medium storage of 6-9 months

Our Cultivars: Khabar Purple Stripe 

Garlic should be stored between 10C and 20C, with an ideal temperature of 13C-14C.
Ensure good air circulation (no plastic bags), with relative humidity of 45% – 50%.
Storing garlic outside of these conditions can cause it to shrink, sprout, mould or dry out.
DO NOT store in plastic, in a jar, or in the fridge.
DO store in paper, hanging, in a dry basement, in a back room.

We recommend planting garlic around Thanksgiving, when the weather and soil are both favourable for planting. 

Garlic needs weed-free, nutrient-rich soil with good drainage. 

To plant, separate out your cloves and plant them out with 6" spacing. Simply press the clove into the soil a couple inches but ensure that your planting it root (basal plate) down and the pointy part up! 

It's a good idea to mulch your garlic with some weed-free straw. You can mulch quite thick but be aware that you may need to remove the mulch come spring so that the soil doesn't retain too much moisture. The goal of the mulch is to help insulate the garlic to prevent the cloves from suffering freeze-thaw cycles and it also helps suppress weeds in the summer and retain soil moisture.

Watch for the garlic to emerge in the spring as the soil warms. You can dig down a little and peek on the root development if you get nervous. If you mulch thick, you may want to remove a little bit if we get a damp spring/summer. 

Next, watch for leek moth damage - this will present like sawdust on your garlic stems. Consider covering the garlic with a row cover to protect it from the moth. You can also manually kill the moths as you see them - they are quite small and best hunted first thing in the morning. It's not the end of the world if you do get leek moth damage. They lay eggs in the stem and the larvae will burrow down into your bulb but the garlic is still fine for consumption. 

Come mid-late June you will need to snap off the garlic scapes. These are the flower stem of the garlic and are best removed once the scape achieves a good loop. Removing scapes allows your garlic to focus its energy on root production. You can eat the scapes! Fry them up or make pesto. 

Finally July comes and it's time to watch for maturing garlic. Garlic is ready once about 1/3 of the leaves are dried looking. You may want to harvest early if it's very wet so you don't end up losing your bulbs to rot. Remember to dig the bulbs to loosen them (rather than straight pull), so you don't snap the stems. 

Dry and cure your garlic in a breezy warm place for 10 days or so and then store according to the recommendations above. Enjoy your home-grown garlic all winter long!