Favorite Varieties: Garlic

This list is probably not 100% accurate because I don’t usually write down what garlic I grow, but our top pick had been Music, a hardneck variety, for a long time. We’ve been growing it from saved seed since 2018 and some large heads are 3 cloves in total. That’s some serious garlic. It’s pretty amazing and I love growing it.

All these varieties, except the ones with an asterisk which are new to us this fall, have performed pretty well for us, yielding medium or larger cloves come harvest. Maybe I’m missing the mark, but to me, garlic, like onions and shallots, should have a stellar storage quality first and foremost for our homestead, while other attributes come in secondary, although a very close second. I guess I’m not much help in specifically recommending garlic varieties because I’m not as picky of a garlic consumer as I am of other vegetables. But hands down, Music is a must-grow for me.

Here are all the varieties I’ve grown over the last 8 seasons here:

• Georgian Crystal
• Red Italian
• Inchelium Red (softneck)
• Transylvanian (softneck)
• Lorz Italian (softneck)*
• Italy Hill Giant Ivory*
• Late Italian
• Chesnok Red
• Russian Red
• Korean Red

Softneck Surprises

I’ve been growing Transylvanian from saved seed since 2020, and they grow decent softneck bulbs here, which is a little surprising. I am still growing them out and I hope in one near-future year, we will have longer storage garlic for our dry root cellar. As it stands, my hardneck garlic starts drying out by Thanksgiving and I rarely get it chopped up in time for the dehydrator (as I write this I know I’ve lost some bulbs entirely). Also, when we reach for one of these vegetables for a meal, it’s 99% of the time an onion over garlic.

Lorz Italian has become our go-to soft neck variety along with Italy Hill. They both produce sizable cloves, ones that rival less vigorous hardneck varieties, and even less vigorous Music cloves that get planted in fall. So, I now grow about a 2/3 hard neck to 1/3 soft neck mixture so that we can use it for planting, dehydrating and grinding, and the soft neck helps extend the garlic season well into spring for us here.

In full disclosure, we aren’t super picky when it comes to our garlic. But we do love to grow it and grow from saved seed. There’s something very satisfying about it. Some years I am able to gift garlic around the holidays to teachers and such, but this year my hardneck went way past prime storage to desiccating rather quickly by early November. Hardneck’s storage is about 4-6 months compared to softneck’s of around 8+ months. The tradeoff is larger cloves for shorter storage times, so if you don’t mind peeling smaller cloves, softneck may be the best garlic for you. You also don’t get the scapes, which are a wonderful bonus crop so maybe do what we do and grow some of both!

For 2023 we grew Music, Transylvanian (soft neck), Lorz Italian (soft neck), Italy Hill, & Northern White. 130 cloves in total with about 60 soft neck. This quantity for us is sort of ridiculous, but it also occupies a nice big bed for some fall plantings like head lettuce, cilantro, arugula, and spinach, which is going to be a large focus for our 2023 summer garden because we are planning a vacation to England and Germany for mid to late July which is equal parts insane and exhilarating.

I am certain many of you are much more discerning with garlic, so I’d love to hear your top picks and why in the comments below. I am sure I’m not done experimenting with new varieties and am always open to adding to my seed wish list.