Hardneck Garlic and Why I love it!

[macmex]

Okay, so I have to admit, I love all garlic. Haven't met a garlic I didn't like. But hard neck is really the bomb.

I hear that its flavor is really excellent. I suppose so, but the honest truth is, to me, most garlic tastes about the same to me. I'm just not that discerning when it comes to garlic flavor. Still, I LOVE garlic. So what's so special about hard neck garlic? Well, there are a couple of things, I just discovered one of them last week.

1) Hard neck multiplies like crazy. It not only makes heads on the bottom but also hard neck makes scapes on top, and that, every year. Scapes are like top sets. They are balls of tiny garlic cloves.

This is a picture of the top sets (and scapes) around the end of August.

If these even just fall to the ground and remain there until winter, they will sprout and produce a cluster of miniature garlic plants.

Photo taken in December

It's entirely doable to buzz off the tops of these clumps and use them in cooking, or, one could break them up and plant them.

This is a photo of some of these little plants, around the middle of March. If one plants these, they will produce "smallish" cloves in the coming summer, but after that, you're going to have full size, regular garlic. The potential of hard neck garlic for fast multiplication is astonishing.

Here's a photo of some scapes, taken around the end of July.

All I did was grab one of the top sets and crush it apart in my hand. Look at all those scapes! Okay, confession time: I don't keep an immaculate garden. I kind of co-exist with weeds... and other plants. One of my favorite things to do with these mature top sets is to crush them into individual scapes and toss them over my shoulder, while standing in the garden. If they happen to sprout in a convenient place, I leave them and have... more garlic. Otherwise, they are easy to hoe out when I need the space.

On account of this idiosyncrasy I have pretty good size swaths of hard neck garlic right now. They are easy to identify because of their distinctive top sets. Right now, around the middle of June, the top sets are very easy to spot. They stand out in the garden. In fact, I think they look beautiful and could almost be used for decorative effect. But they are immature. The scapes are very very tiny and very ... tender.... The "wrapper" around them is tender.

The other day I was making a big pot of rabbit stew, scavenging vegetable ingredients from the garden and yard. For onions, I grabbed a few stalks from my Egyptian multiplier onions, dicing them into the stew. Then I started eyeing these hard neck top sets. I vaguely remembered reading that someone, somewhere, uses them for cooking. So, I plucked about 8 of them and just dropped them into the stew to simmer. Oh my goodness! Several hours later, when we dished out some stew, I was blown away at how good garlic flavor it had. Also, I managed to scoop out one or two of those intact top sets and ate them with my stew. Oh my! The flavor was amazing.

Now, if I can make the time, I'm thinking I'm going to go out there, harvest and blanch a bunch of these top sets, freezing them for soups, stews and stir fries in the coming year.

I bet some of you are thinking, "Well, yeah George, I've been doing this for a long time." Maybe, however, others will have a light bulb moment like I did!

What about you? What do you do with hard neck garlic?

 

[woodeye]

macmex , 

If you are not already a salesman, you should be one. Your post about hard neck garlic has me sold on the idea. I love garlic, but have not grown any of it for decades. Even when I did grow it way back when I was a lot younger, I hardly paid attention to it or even learned much about it. I want that to change. Thank you so much for all the pictures and information, hard neck garlic is in my future...

[macmex]

When you come out to visit, remind me, and I'll send you off with a start!

[woodeye]

Thank You! I won't even need to put that on my to-remember list, there's no way I'll forget that. I look forward to visiting you all next month...

[amyinowasso]

Early on, I bought several varieties of hard neck garlic at the farmer's market. Planted them in the fall, along with what was left of my grocery store softneck grown the year before. Many people cut tthe Scapes when they curl, before the "flowers" open. Apparently that is a delicacy green. Supposedly the heads are bigger if Scapes are cut. I wanted to look into true garlic seed. The bulbils George mentions are laced with flowers which may produce seed. Those who are intent on this either leave the scape on the plant or cut it and put in water. One then has to remove the bulbils without damaging the flowers. Flowers mature and MAYBE you get viable seed. I decided it was too hot for this effort, though I tried putting the Scapes in water, I didn't get seed. I did, however, get hundreds, maybe thousands of bulbils. I tried to taste test the different varieties both raw and cooked. My husband didn't like them for cooking. Raw, most were hot. The grocery store descendants were what we liked best. I grew hard necks a couple more years. In the end I wanted to grow more of other things and garlic's footprint lost out. If you have the room and want to be sustainable, it is a good choice.